Yukon mine death preventable: report

A fatal cave-in at Yukon Zinc Corp.'s Wolverine mine last week could have been prevented, according to a preliminary report by the Yukon Workers' Compensation Health and Safety Board.

Will Fisher, a 25-year-old mechanic from British Columbia, was killed on April 25 when part of an underground tunnel collapsed on him and two other workers at the Wolverine site, located 200 kilometres south of Ross River in southeastern Yukon. The two other workers survived.

The compensation board's preliminary report, released Thursday in Whitehorse, said the tunnel Fisher died in had exceeded the size limits for its stabilizing system, without any additional supports built in.

Tunnel widened improperly

"This fatality was preventable. Ground support design must be modified on an ongoing basis to reflect actual rock behaviour and geotechnical conditions," Kurt Dieckmann, the board's director of occupational health and safety, said Thursday.

Dieckmann said the Wolverine mine uses a system of rock bolts and mesh to shore up the tunnels, and that system was designed for a tunnel 4½ metres wide by 4½ metres high.

Part of the tunnel Fisher was in had been widened to twice the limit. However, no changes were made to the stabilizing system, which Dieckmann said could not have supported such a wide tunnel.

Part of the tunnel collapsed onto Fisher and buried him, Dieckmann said.

Despite the report's findings to date, Dieckmann said is still too early to lay blame or consider charges.

"We now have to take all that evidence that we have gathered and we have to start putting it together and finding out what actually happened, what conditions existed, if and where responsibilities lie, those types of things," he said.

'Safe to mine'

The compensation board's investigation will also look at what mine officials knew about the stability of the rock in the Wolverine mine.

Dieckmann said he believes underground mining operations, which have been suspended since Fisher's death, can resume once investigators are certain that safety concerns have been addressed.

"I firmly believe that it is safe to mine in there," he said. "How is it done is the question."

Yukon Zinc plans to begin production at the Wolverine mine in late June.

Fisher and the surviving two workers were with Procon Mining and Tunnelling Ltd., a mining contractor working on the mine site.

Dieckmann said the compensation board's preliminary report is being issued now in order to prevent similar incidents from happening at the Yukon's other mines, including the Bellekeno silver property near Keno City.