"Trapped miners eke out survival; Two days of food lasted two weeks" by Federico Quilodran, Associated Press | August 25, 2010
Liliana Ramirez (right) read a letter sent by her husband, Mario Gomez, one of the 33 miners trapped in a Chilean mine. (Martin Bernetti/ AFP/ Getty Images)
COPIAPO, Chile — Each of the 33 miners trapped a half-mile underground lived on two spoonfuls of tuna, a sip of milk, a morsel of peaches, and a bite of crackers. Every other day.
They were so careful in eating what was supposed to be a two-day emergency supply that when the outside world finally contacted them 17 days after a mine collapse, they still had food left.
The discipline the men have already shown will be essential during the record four months it could take rescuers to dig a hole wide enough to get them out of their living room-sized shelter. The first communications with the trapped miners, now able to talk through a fixed line with their rescuers above — show how determined they have been to stay alive.
That is squeezing them in pretty tight.
“We heard them with such strength, such spirit, which is a reflection of what for them has been a gigantic fortitude and a very well-organized effort,’’ Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said yesterday after talking with the miners at length the night before through an intercom system lowered into their underground refuge. “The way that they have rationed the food, just as they’ve performed throughout this crisis, is an example for all of us.’’
The miners were plunged into darkness by the Aug. 5 collapse of the main shaft of a gold and silver mine that runs like a corkscrew for more than 4 miles under a barren mountain in northern Chile’s Atacama desert. They gained contact with the outside world Sunday, when rescuers drilled a narrow bore-hole to their shelter after seven failed attempts.
“It’s been like a heart that’s breaking, but we’re thankful they’re all alive,’’ bore-hole driller Rodrigo Carreno said as he prepared to leave yesterday. “We did everything we could to save them, and in the end we succeeded.’’
It's not over yet.
The miners said they have honored the same hierarchy they used on any work shift, following the directions of 54-year-old shift foreman Luis Urzua.
They conserved the use of their helmet lamps, their only source of light other than a handful of vehicles whose engines contaminate the air supply. They fired up a bulldozer to carve into a natural water deposit, but otherwise minimized using the vehicles.
The miners can still reach many chambers and access ramps in the lower reaches of the mine and have used a separate area from their reinforced emergency refuge as their bathroom. But they have mostly stayed in the refuge, where they knew rescuers would try to reach them.
The room has become stiflingly hot and stuffy. Leaving it allows them to breathe better air, but wandering too far is risky in the unstable mine, which has suffered several rock collapses since the initial accident.
Rescue efforts advanced considerably yesterday as a third bore-hole prepared to break through to the miners, and a huge machine arrived from central Chile to carve out a tunnel just wide enough for the miners to be pulled out one by one. That machine won’t begin drilling for several days.
Andres Sougarret, the rescue effort’s leader, estimated that it would take three to four months to pull the men out. But Davitt McAteer, a former assistant secretary of the US Mine Safety and Health Administration, called that “perhaps the most conservative model.’’
“Twenty-five hundred feet is not a terribly, terribly big hole to drill,’’ McAteer said. “We ought to be able to get them out in a period of weeks, not months.’’
Meanwhile, three 6-inch-wide shafts will serve as the miners’ “umbilical cords’’ — one for supplies, another for communications, and a third to guarantee their air supply.
A steady flow of emergency supplies was sent down to the miners yesterday in a rocket-shaped metal tube called a “paloma,’’ Spanish for dove. The paloma is 5 1/4 feet long and takes a full hour to descend through the bore-hole.--more--"
Staying with them might be easier than reading a Globe.
"Chile enlists NASA, navy to help miners; Seeks methods to keep trapped men healthy" by Matt Craze and Randy Woods, Bloomberg News | August 27, 2010
SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile’s government is consulting with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the country’s navy on how to maintain the health of 33 trapped miners who face a three-month wait before they can be rescued from a collapsed gold and copper mine.
Specialists including psychiatrists and nutritionists from NASA were scheduled to discuss in a conference call ways to help the miners cope with the physical and mental challenges of being trapped underground for such a long period, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said.
The miners were found to be alive on Sunday after being entombed 2,300 feet underground since Aug. 5 when the only access to the San Jose mine collapsed. A three-month rescue is unheard of in the mining industry, said Rob McGee, an official of the Uniontown, Pa.-based US Mine Rescue Association....
The mine is owned by Compania Minera San Esteban Primera. State-owned Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, is shipping a chimney-cutter to the site that will bore a hole wide enough to pull the men out. Andre Sougarret, who leads the rescue mission, manages El Teniente in central Chile, the world’s largest underground copper mine.
Drillers will have to bore through the “unstable geology’’ found in the Atacama Desert to reach the miners, said J. Davitt McAteer, who was appointed to investigate the causes of a blast last spring at
The technique of lifting workers from a man-sized hole first proved successful in 1963 after David Fellin and Henry Throne were pulled out of the Sheppton coal mine in Pennsylvania after being trapped for 14 days.
Freeing the miners is “still a hell of a problem,’’ McAteer said. “Lots of things can go wrong. You’ve got to be lucky and be good as well.’’
The trapped miners in Chile have access to more than 1.24 miles of tunnels and a small refuge with benches, Enes Zepeda, director of Codelco’s supervisors union FESUC, said in an interview. They are sleeping on the ground with blankets, he said.
Chile’s rescue plan will surpass a 25-day rescue of three coal miners in a flooded mine in Guizhou, China, McGee said in an e-mailed response to questions. Two Australian miners walked free in May 2006 after being trapped for two weeks almost 1,000 meters underground in a gold mine in Tasmania....
Conflicts may occur when people are trapped together in a confined space for prolonged periods, said Ana Maria Aron, a psychologist who heads a unit at Chile’s Catholic University that helps patients who have suffered from traumatic experiences. The government is doing a good job in giving the miners tasks such as monitoring their health, which helps them feel they have control over their situation, Aron said....
And there is a light at the end of the tunnel now.
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