Freeport says worker dead at Indonesian copper mine

A worker was killed after an incident in an underground section of Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc's giant Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia, the company said.

It was not immediately clear if production was affected.

"The Freeport Indonesia command center received a report of an incident in the West 1E loading area in the DOZ underground mine," Freeport Indonesia corporate communications officer Karel Luntungan told Reuters via text message on Sunday.

"The underground rescue team was immediately deployed ... and successfully evacuated two victims," Luntungan said, adding that one of the victims had been declared dead and another was receiving treatment at Tembagapura hospital not far from the mine.

Company officials could not be reached to confirm if production was impacted, but this would be at least the third deadly accident at the remote Papua complex this year after 28 people were killed in May.

Government officials had been informed about the incident, Luntungan said.

The Grasberg mine, the world's second largest copper mine, produces around 220,000 tonnes (1 tonne= 1.102 metric tons) of copper ore a day under normal conditions, but output has been below this level for most of this year after several fatal incidents.

The open-pit mine normally produces between 140,000 tonnes and 150,000 tonnes of ore per day, while output from the underground operations is 80,000 tonnes.

(Reporting by Sam Wanda in TIMIKA; PAPUA; and Fergus Jensen in JAKARTA; Editing by Mark Potter)