Rio Tinto PLC on Wednesday said a plane carrying its employees crashed on its way to the Diavik mine in Canada, resulting in fatalities.

The crash happened near Forth Smith, Northwest Territories in Canada, the Anglo-Australian miner said.

‘We are working closely with authorities and will help in any way we can with their efforts to find out exactly what has happened,’ said Chief Executive Jakob Stausholm.

Separately, Rio Tinto announced it will develop Australia’s ‘largest’ solar power project, after agreeing to buy all electricity from the 1.1 gigawatt Upper Calliope solar farm to provide renewable power for its Gladstone operations.

‘The agreement will bring more renewable power into one of Australia’s most important industrial hubs and marks another step towards Rio Tinto’s climate goal of halving its global Scope 1 & 2 carbon emissions this decade,’ the miner said.

It said under a new power purchase agreement with European Energy Australia, it will buy all power generated from the solar farm for 25 years. European Energy will build and operate the plant at a site about 50 kilometres south-west of Gladstone, pending approvals for development and grid connection.

Once complete, the Upper Calliope solar farm has the potential to cut Rio Tinto’s operating carbon emissions by 1.8 million tonnes per year.

Stausholm said the deal was ‘a first important step in our work to repower our Gladstone operations and illustrates our commitment to keeping sustainably powered industry in central Queensland.’

Shares in Rio Tinto rose 1.6% to 5,496.00 pence each in London on Wednesday morning.

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