Yellowknife, N.W.T. - The 55th annual Mine Rescue Competition was a success for the Ekati Diamond Mine team, which was the overall surface winner and Diavik Diamond Mine team, which was the overall underground winner.

The Workers' Safety and Compensation Board invites all the mines in the NWT and Nunavut to enter teams to compete in both the underground and surface sections.

The executive director of the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, Tom Hoefer, talks about which competitions are the most challenging out of the eight the miners face.

"I think the one that's always of interest to me and most of the crowd is watching the mock mine simulation. So they have a pretend mine, if you will, set up and nobody knows what the disaster situation is going to be."

Hoefer says this competition is important to the mining community.

"It's a way for them to get together with other mines and show off their stuff to each other and just kind of have a friendly competition to see who may be a little bit better than the others, but they're all very good at what they do."

Both the Ekati and Diavik mining teams will be travelling to take part in the 11th Biennial National Western Mine Rescue Competition in 2013 and the Diavik team will be competing in a international competition in the Ukraine.

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