Down to the mine: Chile, 2005
I visited Concepcion, Chile, on December 2004-January 2005. On the occasion I visited a coal mine in the nearby city of Lota. The mine was shut down and the town tries to make it a tourist attraction. The tunnels extend below the sea, hundreds of meters from the shore. Our guide, an former miner, asked us to turn off our lights for a minute, to make us feel the loneliness and the absolute darkness that the miners had to endure in the event of an accident. Accidents were frequent in that same mine those days - any spark could provoke a blast due to the coal dust that was in the air.
It is a pity that many places that I visited then - Dichato, Tomé etc - were completely razed by the earthquake in Concepcion and the subsequent tsunami. The recent accident with the 33 miners reminded me of my visit to these places. Here are some photos. The last one was downloaded from the internet after the earthquake.
Jan 8, 2005
Photos: 24
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