Copiapo, Chile – When 33 men found alive after 17 days trapped in a deep copper and gold mine, the biggest challenge now, the preservation of their mental health in the months can take to cut a tunnel large enough for them to get out .
Chileans were euphoric Sunday after a small drill bit broke through 2257 feet (688 meters) of solid rock in an emergency refuge where the miners had gathered to reach. The men are soon connected two notes at the end of a probe that rescuers pulled to the surface, announcing in large red letters: “All 33 of us are fine in the asylum.”
“Today all of Chile is crying with excitement and joy,” said Sebastian Pinera President in the mine.
And where many began to give up hope, the scene above ground was a celebration Sunday with a barbecue for the miners’ families, itinerant musicians, candles and Chilean flags make the barren landscape looks festive.
But rescuers said it could take as long as four months – until around Christmas – to cut half shaft about 27 inches (68 centimeters) in diameter, large enough for the miners to be increased by one.
The men have been trapped underground for more than all but a few miners rescued in recent history. Last year, three miners trapped 25 days in a flooded mine in southern China, and two miners survived in northeastern China were rescued after 23 days in 1983. Few other rescues have more than two weeks.
The miners survive after 17 days is very unusual, but because they made so far, they are physically fine, “said Davitt McAteer, assistant secretary for the mine safety and health was on the U.S. Labor Department under President Bill Clinton.
“The health risks in a copper and gold mine are quite small when the air, food and water,” said McAteer.
Yet he said the stress of trapped underground for a long period of time can be considerable.
“There is a psychological pattern that we’ve looked at,” said McAteer. But “they have established communication with the boys, there are people who they can talk through that.”
The hole already drilled will be used for sending small capsules with food, water and oxygen if needed, and audio and video equipment, so the miners can better communicate with loved ones and rescuers. This two-way communication can be crucial to keeping them positive thinking.
A video camera lowered Sunday as the probe has some of the miners, bare-chested in the underground heat, waving cheerfully. But they were unable to record audio in touch, Pinera said.
“I saw eight or nine of them. They waved their hands. She came close to the camera and we could see their eyes, their joy,” the president said.
The miners seemed to understand that their salvation may be slow, according to one of them, Mario Gomez, perhaps the oldest of the 63 trapped men, who wrote a letter to his wife.
“Even if we have to wait months to communicate. … I want to tell everyone that I am good and we will definitely be OK,” Gomez said, scribbling the words on a sheet of notebook paper miners bound to the probe. “Patience and faith. God is great and the help of my God will allow it to leave my life.”
My officials and relatives of the workers had hoped that the men reached a shelter under the place where the tunnel collapsed August 5 at the San Jose gold and copper mine about 530 miles (850 kilometers) north of the capital Santiago. But she said the reception in case of emergency air and food supplies would last only 48 hours.
Gomez said that the miners used for light vehicles and an excavator to dig a channel for water to get underground.
It was unclear whether the air threatened to walk.
Rescuers had drilled repeatedly in an attempt to reach the shelter, but failed seven times. They blamed the errors on the maps of the mining company. According to a note from Gomez, at least some of the earlier probes were close enough that the trapped miners heard them. The eighth attempt finally succeeded.
Gomez noted that the President read aloud on live television, focusing on expressions of faith and love for his family. But through frustration showed in a line, where he declared that “this company has to modernize.”
Chile is the world’s top copper producer and a leading producer of gold, and has some of the most advanced in the world mining. But both the company that the mine, San Esteban and the National Mining and Geology Service held criticized for allegedly not complying with regulations. In 2007, an explosion at the San Jose mine killed three workers.
Liliana Ramirez could not believe it when Chile’s mining minister said that her husband had sent a note to his “Dearest Lila.”
“I know my husband is strong, and at 63, is the most experienced miners that could lead his staff,” she said, but she promised to keep him off the ground after he was rescued.
Authorities and relatives of the miners hugged, climbed a nearby hill, planted 33 flags and sang the national anthem of Chile after the discovery of the miners had survived.
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