This is the real story of survival. Congratulations to the rescue team and to the people of Chile.
Miner Luis Urzua, the last miner to be rescued, celebrates next to Chile's President Sebastian Pinera after being pulled to safety
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| 33 Survivor Chile Miners 1. Florencio Avalos Silva, 31, video operator for the underground miner communications. Expected to be the first up. 2. Mario Sepulveda Espinace, 39, the "journalist" commentator who moderated the video broadcasts. Possibly second one up. 3. Juan Illanes Palma, 52, served in Chilean army, possibly the third up. 4. Carlos Mamani Solis, 23, of Bolivia, the only non-Chilean trapped, possibly number four up. 5. Renan Avalos Silva, 29, brother of Florencio Avalos. 6. Mario Gomez Heredia, 63, the oldest of the group who sent the first report to the surface that they were alive. 7. Jimmy Sanchez Lagues, 19, the youngest. 8. Ariel Ticona Yanez, 29, became a father during the ordeal. His daughter was named Esperanza, for Hope. 9. Edison Pena Villarroel, 34, ran 10 kilometres every day in the underground mine shafts. 10. Víctor Zamora Bugueno, 33, wrote poetry underground. 11. Raul Bustos Ibanez, 40, survived the Chilean earthquake earlier this year, which destroyed his job as a mechanic. Found new job at mine, where he thought he would find more peace. 12. Claudio Yanez Lagos, 34, promised he will marry his partner of 25 years and mother of his children when he emerges. The pair have grandchildren. 13. Víctor Segovia Rojas, 48, kept a journal in the underground. 14. Jorge Galleguillos Orellana, 56, suffers high blood pressure and is one of the complicated medical cases. 15. Jose Henriquez Gonzalez, 54. The number 33 is his fate: married for 33 years, working at the mine for 33 years, and one of the 33 trapped men. 16. Samuel Avalos Acuna, 43, had been a street seller of wares and had hoped for a better life in the mine. 17. Claudio Acuna Cortes, 34, football fan who plans to greet his wife wearing his team's shirt. 18. Franklin Lobos Ramirez, 53, avid football player who received greetings from Spain's David Villa. 19. Osman Araya Araya, 30, experienced a nervous collapse underground. 20. Yonni Barrios Rojas, 50, played nurse to his comrades in the mine. 21. Alex Vega Salazar, 31 , his father is an emergency doctor and changed his name in order to help in the rescue. Family members were not supposed to be part of the rescue team. 22. Richard Villarroel Godoy, 27 23. Daniel Herrera Campos, 27 24. José Ojeda Vidal, 46 25. Luis Urzúa Iribarren, 54 26. Carlos Barrios Contreras, 27 27. Omar Reygada Rojas, 56 28. Juan Carlos Aguilar Gaete, 49 29. Carlos Bugueño Alfaro, 27 30. Pedro Cortés Contreras, 25 31. Pablo Rojas Villacorta, 45 32. Darío Segovia Rojo, 48 33. Esteban Rojas Carrizo, 44 Source: Earthtime.org |
Luis Urzua ascended smoothly through 2,000 feet of rock, completing a 22 1/2-hour rescue operation that unfolded with remarkable speed and flawless execution. Before a jubilant crowd of about 2,000 people, he became the 33rd miner to be rescued.
"We have done what the entire world was waiting for," he told Chilean President Sebastian Pinera immediately after his rescue. "The 70 days that we fought so hard were not in vain. We had strength, we had spirit, we wanted to fight, we wanted to fight for our families, and that was the greatest thing."
The president told him: "You are not the same, and the country is not the same after this. You were an inspiration. Go hug your wife and your daughter." With Urzua by his side, he led the crowd in singing the national anthem.
The rescue exceeded expectations every step of the way. Officials first said it might be four months before they could get the men out; it turned out to be 69 days and about 8 hours.
Once the escape tunnel was finished, they estimated it would take 36 to 48 hours to get all the miners to the surface. That got faster as the operation went along, and all the miners were safely above ground in 22 hours, 37 minutes.
Manuel Gonzelez, the last of six rescue workers who talked the men through the final hours, was hoisted to the surface at 12:32 a.m. Thursday local time to hugs from his comrades and Pinera.
The crowd in "Camp Hope," down a hill from the escape shaft, set off confetti, released balloons and sprayed champagne as Urzua's capsule surfaced, joining in a rousing miners' cheer. In Chile's capital of Santiago, hundreds gathered in Plaza Italia, waving flags and chanting victory slogans in the miners' honor.
In nearby Copiapo, about 3,000 people gathered in the town square, where a huge screen broadcast live footage of the rescue. The exuberant crowd waved Chilean flags of all sizes and blew on red vuvuzelas as cars drove around the plaza honking their horns, their drivers yelling, "Long live Chile!"
"The miners are our heroes," said teary-eyed Copiapo resident Maria Guzman, 45.
One by one throughout the day, the men had emerged to the cheers of exuberant Chileans and before the eyes of a transfixed globe. While the operation picked up speed as the day went on, each miner was greeted with the same boisterous applause from rescuers.
"Welcome to life," Pinera told Victor Segovia, the 15th miner out. On a day of superlatives, it seemed no overstatement.
They rejoined a world intensely curious about their ordeal, and certain to offer fame and jobs. Previously unimaginable riches awaited men who had risked their lives going into the unstable gold and copper mine for about $1,600 a month.
The miners made the smooth ascent inside a capsule called Phoenix — 13 feet tall, barely wider than their shoulders and painted in the white, blue and red of the Chilean flag. It had a door that stuck occasionally, and some wheels had to be replaced, but it worked exactly as planned.
Beginning at midnight Tuesday, and sometimes as quickly as every 25 minutes, the pod was lowered the nearly half-mile to where 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5 and entombed the men.
Then, after a quick pep talk from rescue workers who had descended into the mine, a miner would climb in, make the journey upward and emerge from a manhole into the blinding sun.
The rescue was planned with extreme care. The miners were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from the unfamiliar sunlight and sweaters for the jarring transition from subterranean swelter to chilly desert air.
As they neared the surface, a camera attached to the top of the capsule showed a brilliant white piercing the darkness not unlike what accident survivors describe when they have near-death experiences.
The miners emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven. Several thrust their fists upward like prizefighters, and Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and led his rescuers in a rousing cheer. Franklin Lobos, who played for the Chilean national soccer team in the 1980s, briefly bounced a soccer ball on his foot and knee.
"We have prayed to San Lorenzo, the patron saint of miners, and to many other saints so that my brothers Florencio and Renan would come out of the mine all right. It is as if they had been born again," said Priscila Avalos. One of her brothers was the first miner rescued, and the other was due out later in the evening.
Health Minister Jaime Manalich said some of the miners probably will be able to leave the hospital Thursday — earlier than projected — but many had been unable to sleep, wanted to talk with families and were anxious. One was treated for pneumonia, and two needed dental work.
"They are not ready to have a moment's rest until the last of their colleagues is out," he said.
As it traveled down and up, down and up, the rescue capsule was not rotating as much inside the 2,041-foot escape shaft as officials expected, allowing for faster trips.
The first man out was Florencio Avalos, who emerged from the missile-like chamber and hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son, his wife and the Chilean president.
No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground. For the first 17 days, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was captivated by their endurance and unity.
News channels from North America to Europe and the Middle East carried live coverage of the rescue. Pope Benedict XVI said in Spanish that he "continues with hope to entrust to God's goodness" the fate of the men. Iran's state English-language Press TV followed events live for a time. Crews from Russia and Japan and North Korean state TV were at the mine.
The images beamed to the world were extraordinary: Grainy footage from beneath the earth showed each miner climbing into capsule, then disappearing upward through an opening. Then a camera showed the pod steadily rising through the dark, smooth-walled tunnel.
Among the first rescued was the youngest miner, Jimmy Sanchez, at 19 the father of a months-old baby. Two hours later came the oldest, Mario Gomez, 63, who suffers from a lung disease common to miners and had been on antibiotics inside the mine. He dropped to his knees after he emerged, bowed his head in prayer and clutched the Chilean flag.
Gomez's wife, Lilianett Ramirez, pulled him up from the ground and embraced him. The couple had talked over video chat once a week, and she said that he had repeated the promise he made to her in his initial letter from inside the mine: He would marry her properly in a church wedding, followed by the honeymoon they never had.
The lone foreigner among them, Carlos Mamani of Bolivia, was visited at a nearby clinic by Pinera and Bolivian President Evo Morales. The miner could be heard telling the Chilean president how nice it was to breathe fresh air and see the stars.
Most of the men emerged clean-shaven. More than 300 people at the mine alone had worked on the rescue or to sustain them during their long wait by lowering rocket-shaped tubes dubbed "palomas," Spanish for carrier pigeons. Along with the food and medicine came razors and shaving cream.
Estimates for the rescue operation alone have soared beyond $22 million, though the government has repeatedly insisted that money is not a concern.
The men emerged in good health. But at the hospital in Copiapo, where miner after miner walked from the ambulance to a waiting wheelchair, it became clear that psychological issues would be as important to treat as physical ones.
Dr. Guillermo Swett said Sepulveda told him about an internal "fight with the devil" that he had inside the mine. He said Sanchez appeared to be having a hard time adjusting, and seemed depressed.
"He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect," the doctor said.
The entire rescue operation was meticulously choreographed. No expense was spared in bringing in topflight drillers and equipment — and boring three separate holes into the copper and gold mine. Only one has been finished — the one through which the miners exited.
Mining is Chile's lifeblood, providing 40 percent of state earnings, and Pinera put his mining minister and the operations chief of state-owned Codelco, the country's biggest company, in charge of the rescue.
It went so well that its managers abandoned a plan to restrict images of the rescue. A huge Chilean flag that was to obscure the hole from view was moved aside so the hundreds of cameras perched on a hill above could record images that state TV also fed live.
That included the surreal moment when the capsule dropped for the first time into the chamber, where the bare-chested miners, most stripped down to shorts because of the underground heat, mobbed the rescuer who emerged to serve as their guide to freedom.
"This rescue operation has been so marvelous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world — which have been watching this operation so closely — to see it," a a beaming Pinera told a news conference after the first miner safely surfaced.
The miners' vital signs were closely monitored throughout the ride. They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to prevent nausea from any rotation of the capsule as it travels through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
U.S. President Barack Obama said the rescue had "inspired the world." The crews included many Americans, including a driller operator from Denver and a team from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., that built and managed the piston-driven hammers that pounded the hole through rock laced with quartzite, some of the hardest and most abrasive rock.
Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each man has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal. Since Aug. 22, when a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival, their families have been exposed in ways they never imagined.
Miners had to describe their physical and mental health in detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. In some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.
As trying as their time underground was, the miners now face challenges so bewildering that no amount of coaching can fully prepare them. Rejoining a world intensely curious about their ordeal, they have been invited to presidential palaces, to take all-expenses-paid vacations and to appear on countless TV shows. Book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers.
Sepulveda's performance exiting from the shaft appeared to confirm what many Chileans thought when they saw his engaging performances in videos sent up from below — that he could have a future as a TV personality.
But he tried to quash the idea as he spoke to viewers of Chile's state television channel while sitting with his wife and children shortly after his rescue.
"The only thing I'll ask of you is that you don't treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner," he said. "I was born a miner and I'll die a miner."
Source: yahoo News.
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PRAYERS ANSWERED: Miner Esteban Rojas kneels after reaching the surface to become the 18th miner plucked safely from the San Jose mine, in a rescue operation that riveted the world.
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile—One by one, they emerged through a swinging door, out of a pit a half-mile deep, pumping fists and hugging family. A great-grandfather. A 44-year-old who promised a church wedding for his wife. A 19-year-old greeted by his father. And, lastly, the miners' 54-year-old foreman.
Less than 24 hours after the extraction of the 33 miners began, Luis Urzua walked out of the Phoenix rescue capsule, approached Chilean President Sebastian Piñera and said, "Just as we previously agreed, I'm now handing over my shift to you."
Mr. Piñera, smiling broadly, responded, "Like a good captain would do, you were the last one to abandon your ship." Rescuers cheered and hugged Mr. Urzua, and the president led the crowd in singing the national anthem.
The most striking thing about Wednesday's rescue of 33 trapped Chilean miners, after 70 days underground, was how easy it looked. The capsule that gave each man a trip to freedom seemed more like an off-kilter elevator than a part of history's most audacious mining rescue.
Nothing about the San Jose rescue was easy, of course. Every aspect of the mission was planned and patiently managed, from initial efforts to locate survivors of the Aug. 5 cave-in to NASA's input on the rescue capsule that brought them home. Even so, as the 33rd man appeared—and crews began extracting the six rescuers still underground—Wednesday evening, Chileans acknowledged the proceedings were blessed with an element of luck.
"It was 75% engineering and 25% a miracle," said topographer Macarena Valdes.
Ms. Valdes was speaking of her own role in the rescue, as she augmented science with a touch of gut instinct to help guide rescuers' probe drills into the rock, in hopes of finding survivors, in the days after the miners' disappearance.
Her method paid off after more than two weeks, when searchers sent one of their narrow probe drills down through the rock, punched it into the chamber where the men had taken refuge, and, from more than 2,000 feet above, felt someone tap back.
Throughout the miners' ordeal, and under an international gaze, Chile's rescue operation ran with surgical precision and extracted the men far sooner than the government's initial December estimate. As Wednesday's rescue wore on, miners emerged at an accelerated rate.
Florencio Ávalos was the first to surface, shortly after midnight Wednesday local time, to a tearful reunion with a young son and a hug from Mr. Piñera.
The second miner out, 40-year-old Mario Sepulveda, appeared more than an hour later, pumping his fist and running around leading chants of "C-H-I-L-E! Chi-Chi-Chi-Le-Le-Le! The Miners of Chile." From a bag he had brought up with him, he elaborately presented mine rocks to officials.
Then they began to come every 45 minutes, and faster still. Following the late afternoon rescue of miner No. 25, Renán Ávalos—the 29-year-old brother of Florencio, the first out—a government official said the Phoenix capsule had cut the round-trip time to about 25 minutes.
No. 17, Omar Reygadas—a 56-year-old father of six, grandfather of 14 and great-grandfather of four—came out at noon Wednesday. It had been his third time trapped underground.
No. 21 had explaining to do: As Yonni Barrios had waited to be rescued for weeks under half a mile of rock, his wife of 31 years—and the rest of Chile, through the local media—discovered that he had a mistress keeping vigil at the site, too. Mr. Barrios had been separated from his wife, the papers said, but had told her he was living on his own.
No. 24 was Jose Henriquez, 55, who had asked for 33 small Bibles to be sent to the miners so he could lead a prayer group.
No. 32, Ariel Ticona held up the phone that was used to make first contact with the outside world.
These moments followed weeks of darkness that began with the Aug. 5 cave-in.
Rescuers had little cause for initial optimism, judging by the survival rate of other mining-accident victims. The apparent record-holders for surviving a cave-in, three Chinese miners in Guizhou province, had chewed coal to sate their hunger during their 25 days underground in 2009.
More typical was the 2006 accident in Pasta de Conchos, Mexico, where 65 workers were trapped deep in a coal mine after an underground explosion. In that case, rescuers considered themselves fortunate merely to have retrieved some corpses.
After the world lost contact with the miners, it was the job of Ms. Valdes, the topographer, to help set the direction of the drilling rigs that sent probes deep into the rock to try to locate any surviving miners. Through 17 days, it seemed hopeless. "It was like using a shotgun to hit a mosquito at 700 meters," she said. "It wasn't impossible, but very difficult."
Even after some 30 probes failed to find the mark, Ms. Valdes stuck with a hunch: She always shifted the angle of the drill about one degree lower than recommended by geologists in the planning department, to adjust for vibration in the drilling rig.
One degree could mean a difference of several feet in the field, which could be a matter of life or death for the miners.
Her method finally worked on Sunday, Aug. 22, when the probe she directed found its way to the miners' underground refuge.
Then, rescuers began developing their own technological arsenal, combining modified mining gear with equipment commonly used by astronauts and submariners.
Rescuers began supplying the trapped men with provisions through a five-inch-diameter shaft. They used the conduits to send small tubes, known as palomas, literally carrier pigeons, ingeniously stuffed with essentials such as bottled water, camping cots and chest straps to monitor their health.
The lifeline gave rise to a high-technology life underground. The men wore clothing made with a bacteria-killing copper fiber, watched movies on a projector built into a cellphone, and communicated with rescuers over an ultra-flexible fiber-optic cable that maintains transmission capacity while twisting through rocky crags deep below ground.
Chilean officials assigned psychologists and a personal trainer by video conference to tend to the men. Given the miners' sensitive condition, nutritionists cooked food at high temperatures to guard against infection by bacteria in the minutes between its packaging and its journey down the tube.
To bore through the rock to reach the miners, the government created a kind of friendly competition among three different drills, one so massive it had to be hauled by a 40-truck convoy.
Chilean naval engineers worked overtime designing the 14-foot, 900-pound capsule that hoisted the men out of the mine. It was equipped with a communications system and oxygen supply.
Observers say some of the innovation and management reflects Mr. Piñera's background as a billionaire entrepreneur who ran a successful airline. Mr. Piñera made such a big bet on getting the miners out that a political scientist dubbed him "the 34th miner"—suggesting his own fate was linked to that of the men below.
With the rescue pod making its increasingly frequent round trips Wednesday evening, the sun over the Atacama desert gave way to a cold night. The mood turned visibly more festive.
In spite of the overwhelming relief that greeted the miners' rescue, they will carry with them the 17 days spent underground out of contact with rescuers, sweltering and near starvation, the miners' chief psychologist Alberto Iturra, said recently. They had seemed reluctant to discuss the worst part of their ordeal, he said.
"It's very difficult to tell something to someone and expect them to understand if they weren't there," he said. "The person who hasn't confronted death doesn't understand."
U.S. Drilling Companies Get Moment in Spotlight
The rescue of the Chilean miners gave two small Pennsylvania drilling-equipment companies a priceless opportunity to display their products on a global stage.
The rescue of the Chilean miners gave two small Pennsylvania drilling-equipment companies a priceless opportunity to display their products on a global stage.
The drilling rig that blasted though more than 2,000 feet of rock was made by Schramm Inc. of West Chester, Pa., near Philadelphia, and the drilling bits came from Center Rock Inc. of Berlin, Pa., 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
"We just happened to have the right rig in the right place at the right time," said Frank Gabriel, vice president of sales for Schramm. He said it was too early to say how the event might affect the company's sales but added: "Certainly, the phones have been ringing because of this."
Both companies stressed the humanitarian aspect of the work. However, Brandon Fisher, founder and president of Center Rock, agreed that the publicity could help sales. He called the use of Center Rock's bit "an opportunity of a lifetime," adding, "You're either a hero or zero at the end." Mr. Fisher, whose company also helped rescue coal miners trapped 240 feet below ground for three days in 2002 at the Quecreek mine in southwestern Pennsylvania, said he has urged federal and state regulators to help him assemble a team of drilling experts and equipment to be ready for rescues. "They all loved the concept but no one would step up and fund it," he said. Now Mr. Fisher plans to resume that effort. "We can maybe use this momentum to our advantage and get something rolling here," he said.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration said the agency is working with the mining industry and related parties to improve readiness for emergencies. The agency has developed a mapping tool to help locate equipment needed for rescues, she said.
The Schramm rig used in the rescue belongs to Geotec Boyles Bros. SA of Chile, a drilling firm 50% owned by Layne Christensen Co. of Mission Woods, Kan. "They're the real heroes," Mr. Gabriel said of the drill operators from Geotec Boyles who performed the rescue work with the help of representatives from Center Rock and Schramm.
The particular rig was suitable for this job because it is mobile and can be set up within hours, Mr. Gabriel said. The rig is self-propelled on five axles. "You can drive it down the highway," he said. At about 100,000 pounds, it is about half the weight of more traditional rigs, he said. Schramm, which has about 165 employees and sales of more than $50 million a year, is mainly owned by senior executives of the firm, said Mr. Gabriel. About three-quarters of Schramm's sales are outside the U.S.
Rival suppliers for such mobile rigs include Atlas Copco AB of Sweden and the Gefco division of Blue Tee Corp., New York.
The Center Rock bits used in the operation involve four or five spinning hammers, powered by compressed air. "These things operate like a jackhammer," said Mr. Fisher, the company's president. Center Rock, which has about 70 employees, is owned by Sverica International, a private-equity firm in Boston, and Mr. Fisher. Sales are running at $30 million to $35 million a year. Only about 10% of the sales are outside the U.S., but "that is growing," Mr. Fisher said.
In August, he heard news that the miners might not be pulled out until Christmas and thought the work could be done faster. His wife, Julie, had recently learned that Pennsylvania had a trade representative in Chile. That connection helped get Center Rock involved in the rescue efforts.
The company's main competitor for such bits is Atlas Copco, said Mr. Fisher. A spokeswoman for Atlas Copco had no immediate comment.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
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