A female miner on a routine break has been crushed to death after she apparently drove into the path of one of the fully-laden 400-tonne dump trucks she was employed to drive.

Detectives are now investigating how and why the 38-year-old contractor driving a four-wheel to a meal break came to be in the path of the massive machine at an intersection inside Glencore’s Ravensworth open cut mine just before midnight on Saturday.

Her Toyota Landcruiser was severely crushed before it wedged under the back axle of the dump truck, killing her instantly.

The wreckage was such that it took mine rescue workers more than four hours to recover her body. The woman was a contracted driver who worked at the Xstrata-owned mine for Tesa Mining. A Tesa spokeswoman said the woman had started back working with the company at the start of the year.

She had been living in the Cessnock area.