It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that most of the world’s wettest mines are located in a country that’s highly vulnerable to typhoons. The Philippines is home to seven of the mines on this list, where close to 5,000 millimetres of rain can fall in a single year.
But the world’s wettest mine is Papua New Guinea’s Ok Tedi. This open-pit copper, gold, and silver mine gets an average of 6,636 millimetre per year. To put that into perspective, Vancouver – one of Canada’s rainiest cities – sees about 1,199 millimetres. London, England gets only 594 millimetres.
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#1 Ok Tedi
Average annual precipitation: 6,636 mm
Location: Papua New Guinea
Owner: Ok Tedi Mining
Type: Open-Pit copper, gold and silver mine
#2 Adlay
Average annual precipitation: 4,885 mm
Location: Philippines
Owner: CTP Construction and Mining
Type: Open-pit iron ore and nickel mine
#3 Carrascal
Average annual precipitation: 4,740 mm
Location: Philippines
Owner: Carrascal Nickel Corp.
Type: Open-pit nickel mine
#4 Tandawa
Average annual precipitation: 4,690 mm
Location: Philippines
Owner: Shenzhou Mining Group Corporation
Type: Open-pit nickel mine
#5 Dahican
Average annual precipitation: 4,690 mm
Location: Philippines
Owner: CTP Construction and Mining Corp.
Type: Open-pit nickel mine
#6 Cantilan
Average annual precipitation: 4,680 mm
Location: Philippines
Owner: Marcventures Holdings Inc.
Type: Open-pit nickel mine
#7 Kalonta
Average annual precipitation: 4,558 mm
Location: Myanmar
Owner: China Ming Hua
Type: Open-pit tin and tungsten mine
#8 Urbiztondo
Average annual precipitation: 4,465 mm
Location: Philippines
Owner: FS Borja Mining & Trading
Type: Open-pit nickel mine
#9 Taganito Mine
Average annual precipitation: 4,414 mm
Location: Philippines
Owner: Sumitomo Metal Mining
Type: Open-pit iron ore and nickel mine
#10 El Limon / El Mango
Average annual precipitation: 4,297 mm
Location: Colombia
Owner: Four Points Mining SAS
Type: Underground gold and silver mine
2 Comments
JBW
What you’ve listed there are the mines with the wettest roofs over the mill. It’s infiltration, not precipitation, that makes a mine wet. You’d have to look at pumping rates per unit of development or per unit area of the pit. (Check out Lihir, for example.) Not such an easy hit on those days you need a blog post….
Anonymous
You have neglected to include Stockton Coal Mine on the West Coast of New Zealand. 6000mm. http://www.solidenergy.co.nz/operations/stockton-mine/