UPDATE: Australia's Superpit To Resume Gold Mining After Earthquake

North American gold miners Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) and Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) said that some of their Superpit mining operations in Western Australia will resume later Tuesday following earlier disruptions caused by an earthquake.

Newmont and Barrick evacuated workers from the Fimiston open pit and Mount Charlotte underground mines earlier Tuesday, following the magnitude 5.0 earthquake in Kalgoorlie.

KCGM, which operates the Superpit on behalf of the joint owners, said that all of its personnel were safely accounted for and mining will resume in stages this evening.

"Following assessment by our geotechnical team, some areas of the Fimiston open pit have been released for progressive re-entry and it is anticipated that the Mount Charlotte underground operation will resume at the commencement of this evening's night shift," KCGM said in a statement.

Work on the scheduled Fimiston processing plant maintenance shut down has also resumed, it said.

The Superpit is one of Australia's biggest gold mines, producing up to 800,000 ounces a year in the center of Kalgoorlie.

Meanwhile, a Barrick Gold spokeswoman said that a processing mill at Barrick's 100%-owned Kanowna operations has been shut down and workers evacuated from mine sites pending a safety assessment.

All personnel are accounted for, she said.

The Kanowna mill processes ore from the Kanowna Belle, Raleigh and Bullant mine sites.

Norton Gold Fields Ltd.'s (NGF.AU) Paddington operations were unaffected by the earthquake, a spokesman said.

The company's Homestead underground mine was evacuated as a precautionary measure, but personnel have since returned to their stations after a standard safety inspection. The operations consist of the Paddington mill and a number of surrounding gold mines.

Elsewhere, a spokesman for Mincor Resources NL (MCR.AU) said the Australian nickel miner had felt no impact from the earthquake at its Kambalda sites and production was continuing.

-By Stephen Bell, contributing to Dow Jones Newswires; 61-8-9244-4243; [e-mail]