SANTIAGO, June 17 (Reuters) - A drilling probe conducted by rescuers seeking to find two workers missing in a southern Chile mine for more than a week found water in the area where they are thought to have been at the time of a June 9 flood, authorities said on Saturday.
Snowfall in recent days and the frigid waters of a surrounding lagoon have complicated efforts to find the two workers in the small gold and silver mine owned by Mandalay Resources Corp MND.TO .
General Fernando San Cristobal, head of the rescue team, said the probe reached level 55 - where the miners are believed to have been working and where an emergency shelter is located - and found water. Rescuers are now preparing to deploy a probe with a camera attached.
The workers, identified as Jorge Sanchez and Enrique Ojeda, were trapped after section two of the Delia mine, part of Mandalay's Cerro Bayo complex in Chile's southern Aysen region was flooded. incident has evoked memories of a 2010 mining accident in Copiago, northern Chile, where 33 miners were trapped underground for nearly ten weeks before being rescued.