1 killed, 2 injured in mud rush at Kamloops mine

One worker is dead and two others have been injured in an early morning mud rushat the New Aftonmine, located 17 kilometres west ofKamloops, B.C.

Mine owner New GoldInc. said in a media release that a contract driller ispresumed to have been killedwhile two New Gold employees received non-life threatening injuries.

The incident happened at approximately 1:40 a.m. PT. Names of the workers have not been released.

Work at the mine has been suspended andNew Gold saidRCMP and the provincial safety authorities are on scene.

KamloopsRCMP interim media relations officerConst. Crystal Evelyn said the Tk'emlups Rural RCMP Detachment was called to assist fire and ambulance crews at the mineat 2:24 a.m. PT.

"Right now the details I have are really preliminary, but the BCCoroners Service has been notified by police and we are both investigating," said Evelyn.

Erik Eberhardt, a professorof geological sciences at UBC, said generally, a mud rush can happen quickly when fine rock particles build up unseen,and then comeinto contact with water.

"Effectively they're mining broken rock from underground tunnels or draw points," he said. "With that breakage process there can be a build up of fines really fine grain material or sand and if it mixes with water and there's too high a concentration of those fines, it essentially becomes an underground debris flow or mud slide."

Eberhardt said a mud rush hazard can be hard to predict and manage.

New Aftonis an open pit and undergroundmine that produces gold, silver and copper.