A 47-year-old man has died overnight at South32’s Worsley Alumina refinery in Western Australia, halting operations.
WA Police confirmed emergency services were called to the refinery near Collie, about 200km south of Perth, just before 4am on Saturday.
The man died at the scene, despite immediate first aid being carried out.
Police said a report would be prepared for the coroner.
The worker died at South32’s refinery in the early hours of Saturday morning. (ABC South West: Sam Bold)
A South32 spokesperson confirmed the man, a contractor, had been fatally injured while working at the refinery.
The spokesperson expressed the company’s sympathies and said South 32 was working with the contractor to provide support and counselling.
Operations at the site had been suspended.
“Work not critical to the safety and stability of the site has been temporarily suspended,”
he said.
“We are taking steps to understand what happened and assisting relevant authorities with their inquiries.”
Worksafe confirmed it was investigating the death, and was unable to comment further.
Commissioner Sally North said the incident was a tragedy, and offered her condolences.
Union calls for full and transparent investigation
The Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union state secretary Steve McCartney expressed condolences to the man’s family.
Mr McCartney said the union would also be looking into the circumstances surrounding the death.
“We will be investigating in the near future and making sure that it never happens again,”
he said.
The union said workplace fatalities always raised questions as to whether safety procedures were followed and enforced.
“[We will be] making sure, if there have been any mistakes, then those mistakes don’t happen again,” Mr McCartney said.
“The next step now is, the union always represents their people, and we’ll be investigating this issue.”