The measures aim to prevent the movement of people from other regions into the area and to reduce the overall number of workers and contractors. Chuquicamata will continue to operate with a skeleton crew comprising workers who live locally in Calama.

The Chuquicamata division includes the Chuquicamata, Ministro Hales and Radomiro Tomic mines which together produced more than 803,000 tonnes of copper in 2019 and employ almost 7,000 people. Since May the company has already reduced the number of people working by 30%.

The measures mean work on construction of the Chuquicamata underground mine and other projects has been stopped.