Rains hit copper mines

Reuters

Santiago

Heavy rains in central Chile have prompted global miner Anglo American Plc and state-owned producer Codelco to temporarily suspend operations at two major copper mines with combined annual capacity of 880,000 tonnes.

Any outages will be keenly watched by copper investors as the market suffers its longest crisis in more than a decade amid concerns about oversupply as demand from top consumer China slows.

Natural disasters in Chile, the world's top copper exporter, have crimped output. The torrential downpours during the weekend follow a September 2015 earthquake and March 2015 flooding, which also caused disruption.

The heavy rains over the weekend have left one person dead, seven missing and millions without drinking water as landslides wreaked havoc and rivers breached their banks.