Sunday, October 10, 2010
Carefully Collecting the Chilean Miners
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — They get laundry service, TV, three hot meals a day, and even ice cream for dessert. Everyday life for the 33 miners trapped a half-mile underground now includes some of the comforts of home....
Then maybe the reporter wouldn't mind taking up residence down there.
The miners do get moments to relax, they can watch television — 13 hours a day, mostly news programs and action movies or comedies, whatever is available that the support team decides will not be depressing.
They always stress me out and make me yell so I no longer watch them.
If I did I would give you a 2 minute over/under.
They have seen “Troy’’ and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’’ with Brad Pitt and Jim Carrey’s “The Mask.’’ But no intense dramas....
The news the miners see — which in Chile includes frequent reports about the miners themselves — also is reviewed first by the team above, said Luis Felipe Mujica, the general manager of Micomo, the telecommunications subsidiary of Chile’s state-owned Codelco mining company.
“Of course, to do that you need to watch the news first and effectively limit access to certain types of information, or to put it vulgarly, censor it,’’ Mujica said. “This is a rescue operation, not a reality show.’’
Hey, after a while you get used to reading between the lines of the newspaper.
And there is nothing real about reality shows!
Though some miners have requested them, sending down personal music players with headphones and handheld video games has been ruled out, because those items tend to isolate people from one another....
And yet the kids are born with them here!
The miners' routine starts with breakfast — hot coffee or tea with milk and a ham-and-cheese sandwich.
It is just like home!
Then lots of labor: Removing the loose rock that drops through the bore holes as they are being widened into escape tunnels; cleaning up their trash and emptying the toilet; and attending to the capsules known as “palomas’’ — Spanish for carrier pigeons — that are lowered to them with supplies.
The miners must quickly remove the contents — food, clean clothes, medicine, family letters, and other supplies — and send back up material such as dirty clothes, rolled up like sausages to fit. Each trip down takes 12 to 15 minutes, then four minutes for unloading and five minutes to pull them back up.
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"Drilling success may speed rescue; Miners may be out month earlier" by Vivian Sequera, Associated Press | September 30, 2010
COPIAPÓ, Chile — The families of 33 trapped miners were in high spirits yesterday after a surge in the drilling of escape tunnels raised hope that the men may be rescued from the San Jose mine sooner than previously expected....
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Wait just a minute....
COPIAPO, Chile — It is the nightmare scenario: The earth shifts just as a miner is being pulled to safety, jamming his escape capsule somewhere between the surface and the underground cavern where 33 men have waited for two months to be rescued.
A partial collapse in the shaft carved through nearly a half-mile of rock could trap the man in a spot where even the most powerful drills could not free him.
With the rescue drill likely to reach the men by tomorrow, Chile’s government is planning to guard against such a disaster by inserting steel pipe that can withstand tons of pressure into the shaft.
But some experts fear that inserting the pipe is risky in itself....
The shaft is shaped like a waterfall plunging off a cliff, its incline gradual at first, then bending to nearly perpendicular. Getting a straight pipe through that curve is the challenge.
“So what happens? The pipe, by virtue of its own weight, bends a little; it has a certain flexibility. But when you weld two sections together and insert it in the hole, the weld doesn’t bend; it’s rigid, hard. And so the question is whether it will withstand’’ the stress of the curve, an engineer involved said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the drilling publicly.
“If they decide to encase it completely . . . you’re talking about a tube that weighs 130 tons.’’
There are other risks as well.
“A pipe could get stuck in the shaft,’’ the engineer said. “And if you encase the whole length of the shaft, at the end, what would support all that weight? That’s what has to be determined.’’
The pipe is made of half-inch-thick steel, 24 inches wide on the outside. Each section would be inserted into the shaft with an enormous crane, which arrived at the mine on seven huge trucks yesterday to applause from relatives who have held vigil on the dusty Atacama desert hilltop since their men were trapped on Aug. 5.
The risks cannot be weighed until the shaft is inspected with a video camera, said Brandon Fisher, president of Pennsylvania-based Center Rock Inc., which makes the drilling system being used on the T130....
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Related: Trapped Chilean miners may see sunlight in a few days (New York Times)
Maybe not, NYT!
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — Chile’s trapped miners cheered and embraced yesterday when a drill punched an escape shaft into an underground chamber in a spray of rock and dust on the 66th day of their agonizing entombment, opening the way for rescuers to set plans to begin lifting the men out by midweek.
The government’s mining minister said late last night that the extraction of the 33 men will probably begin Wednesday, after an inspection revealed that the new hole is mostly strong enough to enable them to escape safely. He said only a stretch at the top will be reinforced with steel pipe.
The completion of the rescue shaft caused bedlam in the tent city known as Camp Hope, where the miners’ relatives have held vigil since a cave-in sealed off the gold and copper mine Aug. 5.
Miners videotaping the drill breaking through a chamber’s ceiling 2,041 feet underground could be seen cheering joyfully and hugging each other, the drillers said. At the surface, the rescuers chanted, danced, and sprayed champagne so excitedly that some of their hard hats tumbled off....
The milestone thrilled Chileans, who have come to see the rescue drama as a test of the nation’s character and pride.
“What began as a potential tragedy is becoming a verified blessing,’’ President Sebastian Pinera said in a triumphant speech at the La Moneda palace in Santiago....
The political consequences were inescapable, since Chile’s success story would evaporate if a miner should get stuck on the way up for reasons that might have been avoided.
Everything is ALWAYS FRAMED as how it will AFFECT the ELITE and POLITICS in my PAPER!! Is that why I am SO SOUR on it?
Some miners’ families wanted the entire shaft lined with pipe, but some engineers involved said the risk of the capsule getting jammed in the unreinforced hole was less than the risk of the pipes getting jammed and ruining their hard-won exit route.
Many experts doubted whether encasing the entire shaft was even possible.
“Based on my experiences, it cannot be done. Nor does it need to be done,’’ Brandon Fisher, president of a US drilling equipment company, said yesterday.
Then why did I get a full article about it?
The miners’ anxiety is growing about the rescue, which should take about a day and a half to complete, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said....
The order in which the 33 miners should be rescued will be determined by a navy special forces paramedic who will be lowered into the mine to prepare the men for their journey.
When they are brought to the surface, the miners will be initially examined at a field hospital where they’ll be allowed to briefly reunite with relatives.
Then, they’ll be flown by helicopter in small groups to the regional hospital in Copiapo, capital city of the region where the mine is located, where they will be observed for at least 48 hours. Only after their physical and mental health is thoroughly examined will they be allowed to go home....
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Also see:
Chilean Gold Mine
Spending Some Time With the Trapped Chilean Miners
Chilean Miners Caught on Tape
Checking In With the Chilean Miners
Chilean Miners Working For Free
Chilean Miners Resort to Cannibalism
Spain's Sit-Down Strikes
Chile Check For Breakfast
Almost time for lunch.
