Colorado gold mine lift malfunction: One dead and 23 rescued

One person has died and 23 others have been rescued after a lift malfunctioned at a disused Colorado gold mine.

Two groups of 12 people were touring Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine in Cripple Creek, a privately owned tourist attraction, when the failure occurred on Thursday, leaving one group stuck below ground for six hours.

In the first group, one person died while the remaining 11 tourists, including two children, were rescued from the mine, four of them with minor injuries.

The second group of 12 were stranded in a tunnel at the bottom of the mine but all were returned to safety later in the day.

The hour-long tour takes visitors 1,000ft (305m) down the shaft into the south-west side of Pikes Peak, according to the tour company’s website.

Officials say the lift descending into the gold mine had a mechanical issue around 500ft beneath the surface, creating a “severe danger for the participants”.

“We did have one fatality that occurred during this issue at 500ft,” Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said earlier. He did not give details.

“There is an elevator issue to resolve before they could be brought up,” Sheriff Mikesell told reporters.

Rescue teams used radio to communicate with the 12 others who were stuck near the bottom of the mine.

“They have chairs, blankets, water and are at a safe temperature,” Sheriff Mikesell said. “This was due to an equipment malfunction. The mine did not collapse.”

Several agencies, including search and rescue teams, responded to the incident with heavy equipment.

Hours later, Governor Jared Polis said: “I am relieved that 12 of the people trapped in the Mollie Kathleen Mine have been safely rescued.”

According to the tour company’s website, entering the 1890s gold mine is comparable to riding in a lift, complete with the sounds of mining machinery.

Visitors to the Mollie Kathleen view several exposed gold veins in their natural state, the website says.

The website adds that revenue from the tours is used to “maintain the mine in safe operable mining condition”.

Officials say the last time an “incident” occurred there was in 1986, though they did not provide more detail.

On TripAdvisor, several people described the lift as a miners “cage”. The posts, which the BBC could not verify, said conditions could be tight and claustrophobic.

William Snare, a former hoist operator at the mine, told the Colorado Springs Gazette that the lift could carry between nine to 15 people. He said it took two minutes to descend, and four to five minutes to return to the surface.

The mine was named after Mollie Kathleen Gortner, the first woman in the Cripple Creek Gold Camp to strike gold in 1891.

The tours were set to close this Sunday for the season.