Production has been halted at one of the two main pits at Rio Tinto’s Diavik mine in Canada temporarily due to safety concerns over subsidence.
According to Rio Tinto, an area of unstable ground was detected on an access road to the mine's A154 pit in the evening of 4 July 2024 and work was suspended.
"All employees are safe, but as a precautionary measure, operations underground have been temporarily suspended in the A154 pit until we have a better understanding of the cause of this event," a spokesperson for the mine told local news outlet Cabin Radio.
The miner declined to say how long the pit would be shut, or whether the closure would affect rough production from the deposit. However, subsidence usually requires structural improvements that could take time.
Diavik has produced over 100 million carats of rough diamonds since commercial production started in 2003. It is due to close in 2026. In April 2024, the deposit’s 100 percent owner Rio Tinto announced a 22-percent drop in its first quarter diamond production following a short halt to production to allow workers to grieve for colleagues who had died in a plane crash. Production for the year of 2023 was 3.34 million carats, down 28 percent compared with the production in 2022, but still within the company's 3 million carats to 3.8 million carats guidance. (Photo courtesy: Rio Tinto)
18-07-2024
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