Rescuers are trying to free a miner pinned underground during a rockfall at the Ballarat Gold Mine at Mount Clear, near Ballarat.

Overnight, police confirmed 27 miners were caught in the rock collapse at the mine site on Woolshed Gully Drive at Mount Clear around 4:50pm.

Two men were injured, including a 21-year-old Ballarat man who was extracted by mine rescue teams and flown to the Alfred hospital in Melbourne with life-threatening injuries to his lower body. 

A second man remains trapped deep underground.

“The location of the incident is about 500 metres underground, about 3 kilometres into the mine,” Acting Inspector Lisa Macdougall said.

Acting Inspector Macdougall said 25 of the miners made it to a safety pod within the mine network.

The injured miner was extracted from another area of the mine.

The mine is a working operation on the edge of suburban Mount Clear with tunnels and shafts stretching below houses.

It is not open to the public.

More than 30 emergency service workers attended the site overnight and more will arrive today.

“WorkSafe has been notified of an incident at the underground mine in Mount Clear near Ballarat and inspectors and a technical specialist are responding,” a Worksafe spokesperson said.

A virtual tour of the mine on its website shows a large underground operation with many shafts, large caverns, vehicles, and workers. 

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan posted about the collapse last night on social media site X, formerly Twitter. 

“I’m thinking of every worker and every family who’s impacted by the Ballarat mine incident,” she said. 

Ballarat Gold Mine declined the ABC’s request for a comment on the incident.