6:35 P.M. — SAN JOSE MINE, Chile ? Fresh air and freedom were just hours away today for the first of 33 miners trapped a half-mile underground for 69 days, men whose endurance and unity captivated the world as the Chilean government meticulously prepared their rescue. No one in the history of mining has been trapped so long and survived.
The first miner was expected to be lifted to the surface late today in a custom-made capsule. President Sebastian Pinera was at the mine, waiting to greet him.
“We made a promise to never surrender, and we kept it,” Pinera said at about 5:45 p.m. local time (4:45 p.m. EDT), shortly before two rescue workers were expected to go down to prepare the miners for their trip. The president said the first miner will be brought up about two hours later.
Chile has taken extensive precautions to ensure the miners’ health and privacy, sending down Navy special forces paramedics to prepare them for the trip and using a screen to block the top of the shaft from more than 1,000 journalists at the scene.
The miners will be ushered through an inflatable tunnel, like those used in sports stadiums, to an ambulance for a trip of several hundred yards (meters) to a triage station for an immediate medical check. They will gather with a few family members, in an area also closed to the media, before being transported by helicopter to a hospital.
Each ride up is expected to take about 20 minutes, and authorities expect they will be able to haul up roughly one miner an hour. The rescue of the last miner will end a national crisis that began when a cave-in sealed off the gold and copper mine Aug. 5.
The only media allowed to record them coming out of the shaft will be a government photographer and Chile’s state television channel. Their images will be delayed about 30 seconds or more to prevent the release of anything unexpected.
The worst technical problem that could happen, rescue coordinator Andre Sougarett told The Associated Press, is that “a rock could fall,” potentially jamming the capsule partway up the shaft. But test rides suggest the ride up will be smooth.
Panic attacks are the rescuers’ biggest concern. The miners will not be sedated ? they need to be alert in case something goes wrong. If a miner must get out more quickly, rescuers will accelerate the capsule to a maximum 3 meters per second, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said.
Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, whose management of the crisis has made him a media star in Chile, said authorities had already thought of everything.
“There is no need to try to start guessing what could go wrong. We have done that job,” Golborne said. “We have hundreds of different contingencies.”
As for the miners, they were kept busy today making final preparations “to keep their spirits up,” Manalich said. He added that they were doing well: “It remains a paradox ? they’re actually much more relaxed than we are.”
Rescuers finished reinforcing the top of the 2,041-foot (622-meter) escape shaft early Monday, and the 13-foot (four-meter) tall capsule descended flawlessly in test runs.
The white, blue and red capsule ? the biggest of three built by Chilean navy engineers ? was named Phoenix I for the mythical bird that rises from ashes.
The miners will be closely monitored from the moment they’re strapped into the claustrophobic steel tube to be hauled up the smooth-walled tunnel. For the last six hours before surfacing, they’ll drink a special high-calorie liquid diet prepared and donated by NASA, designed to keep them from vomiting as the rescue capsule rotates 10 to 12 times through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft. They stopped sooner than planned after the sleeve became jammed during a probe of the curved top of the hole, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical at its top before plunging like a waterfall.
Drillers had to curve the shaft so that it would pass through “virgin” rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
As each miner is hauled up, a small video camera in the escape capsule will be trained on his face so rescuers can watch for panic attacks. The miners will wear oxygen masks and have two-way voice communication.
Their pulse, skin temperature and respiration rate will be constantly measured through a biomonitor around their abdomens. To prevent blood clotting from the quick ascent, they took aspirin and will wear compression socks.
The miners will also wear sweaters because they’ll experience a shift in climate from about 90 degrees Fahrenheit underground to temperatures hovering near freezing if they emerge at night. Those coming out during daylight hours will wear sunglasses.
Seconds before each miner surfaces, an ambulance-like siren will sound and a light will flash for a full minute. Officials are calling this the Genesis alarm, meant simply to alert doctors that a miner is arriving.
Many steps have been taken to protect the emerging miners from the media.
Photographers and camera operators will be able to see light but little more from a platform set up more than 300 feet (90 meters) away.
After initial medical checks and visits with family members selected by the miners, the men will be airlifted to the regional hospital in Copiapo, roughly a 10-minute ride away. Two floors have been prepared where the miners will receive physical and psychological exams and be kept under observation in a ward as dark as a movie theater.
Chilean air force Lt. Col. Aldo Carbone, the choppers’ squadron commander, said the pilots have night-vision goggles but will not fly unless it is clear of the Pacific Ocean fog that rolls in at night, a notoriously thick, humid blanket Chileans call “the camanchaca.” Night traffic on the mine road was banned as a precaution to keep headlights from interfering with the night-vision goggles, and to keep the road clear for ambulances should they be necessary.
Families were urged to wait and prepare to greet the miners at home after a 48-hour hospital stay.
“In Chile, we have huge families,” Manalich said, joking that if they weren’t stopped, entire football teams of people would crowd into the hospital’s wards. He also said that no cameras or interviews will be allowed until the miners are released, unless the miners expressly desire it.
Officials have drawn up a secret list of which miners should come out first, but the order could change after paramedics and a mining expert first descend in the capsule to evaluate the men. First out will be the four miners best able to handle any difficulties and tell their comrades what to expect. Then, the 10 who are weakest or suffer from hypertension, diabetes, dental and respiratory infections and skin lesions from the mine’s oppressive humidity.
The first miner to be rescued will be Florencio Avalos, according to his mother, Maria Silva, and uncle Alberto Avalos, who said Pinera told them that.
The last miner out, according the list, will be shift foreman Luiz Urzua, whose leadership was credited for the miners’ survival during the 17 days when they were utterly closed off from the outside world. The men stretched an emergency food supply meant to last just 48 hours by taking tiny sips of milk and bites of tuna fish every other day.
Several of Urzua’s relatives told the AP that he was last on the list, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid upsetting government officials.
“He’s a very good guy ? he keeps everybody’s spirits up and is so responsible ? he’s going to see this through to the end,” said his neighbor Angelica Vicencio, who has led a nightly vigil outside the Urzua home in Copiapo.
The government has promised that its care of the miners won’t end for six months at least ? not until they can be sure that each miner has readjusted.
“We learned something in medicine, that our job is to provide benefit and not harm,” Manalich said. “We have to protect them until the last minute, until they can return to normal lives with their families.”
Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal, and that both the miners and their families have been forever changed by this experience.
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 pen, that announced their survival, these families’ lives have been exposed in ways they never imagined. Miners had to describe their physical and mental health in minute detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. And in some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.
By the time of the rescue, nerves were beyond frayed outside the mine in “Camp Hope,” where miners’ families and reporters from all over the world slept side by side in tents and campers, enduring the baking days and frigid nights of the desolate Atacama desert.
Many relatives privately described their feuds and jealousies with an AP reporter who spent the past month at the camp.
“Here the tension is higher than down below. Down there they are calm,” said Veronica Ticona, sister of 29-year-old Ariel Ticona, a trapped rubble-removal machine operator.
Alberto Iturra, chief of the psychology team, told the families to go home, get some rest, and prepare to reunite in several days.
“I explained to the families that the only way one can receive someone is to first be home to open the door,” Iturra said.
1:26 p.m. update
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile ? The first of 33 trapped miners is expected to be lifted to the surface late Tuesday after miraculously surviving more than two months about half a mile below ground, Chile’s Mining Minister Laurence Golborne announced.
The minister told a news conference that officials “hope to have at least one of our miners on the surface” before the end of the day ? apparently the longest period anyone has ever been trapped underground.
President Sebastian Pinera was expected to arrive shortly before the first miner is pulled out in a carefully choreographed operation meant to minimize any risk.
Asked about the biggest technical problem that could hit the rescue operation, coordinator Andre Sougarett said: “A rock could fall.”
“There is no need to try to start guessing what could go wrong. We have done that job,” a confident Golborne said. “We have hundreds of different contingencies.”
Rescuers were keeping the miners busy on final preparations they were to climb into a custom-made capsule for what tests indicated should be a smooth ride to the outside world.
“The miners are very busy ? that’s also to keep their spirits up,” Health Minister Jaime Manalich said. “It remains a paradox ? they’re actually much more relaxed than we are.”
As the miners emerge, they will be sheltered from the glare of TV cameras. They will get an immediate medical check and gather with a few family members in an area closed to the news media. Officials say a siren will sound as each miner emerges.
Then, they will ride in helicopters ? two at a time if they are in beds, or four at a time if they can sit up ? to the regional hospital in Copiapo for a battery of physical and psychological exams.
“Our job is to provide benefit and not harm,” Manalich said, urging the media ? more than 1,000 journalists are working on the story ? to respect their privacy. “We have to protect them until the last minute, until they can return to normal lives with their families.”
Nearby, the miners’ families have been holding vigil at a place called “Camp Hope.”
“Here the tension is higher than down below. Down there they are calm,” said Veronica Ticona, sister of 29-year-old Ariel Ticona, a trapped rubble-removal machine operator.
After 68 days of shared fears and jitters ? all of it under the close scrutiny of dozens of reporters that have now grown to a battalion ? the early fellowship has frayed. Some relationships, once at least cordial, are as hostile as the desolate sands of the surrounding Acatama desert.
Relatives privately shared stories of the divisiveness with an Associated Press reporter who spent the past month at the camp, frequently bedding down in a tent beside theirs, sharing coffee and gossip.
The feuds and jealousies within families centered on such matters as who got to take part in weekend videoconferences with the miners, who received letters and why ? or even who should speak to the media and how much they should be revealing about a family’s interior life.
Some relatives complained about distant kin seeking the international media limelight, giving interviews about trapped miners they barely know.
Then there are those who, despite only distant blood ties to miners, lined up for donated gifts including sexy lingerie, bottles of wine and electronic toys and Halloween costumes for children.
There were even fights over who constitutes a close relative ? or even a miner’s preferred conjugal companion.
So Alberto Iturra, the chief of the psychology team advising the trapped men, decided that after each miner rides an escape capsule to daylight, the rescued man will meet with between one and three people whom the miner has personally designated.
Then there is the question of money.
It has already strained relations between families as some seem to be getting more than others, including from some news media, who outnumber the miners’ relations several fold.
Cognizant of the emotional toll, Iturra recommended Monday that the relatives leave the mine, go home and get some rest.
“I explained to the families that the only way one can receive someone is to first be home to open the door,” Iturra said.
The dramatic endgame was hastening as the rescuers finished reinforcing the escape shaft early Monday and the 13-foot (four-meter)-tall rescue chamber descended flawlessly nearly all the way to the trapped men in a series of test runs.
On Monday, the Phoenix I capsule ? the biggest of three built by Chilean navy engineers, named for the mythic bird that rose from ashes ? made its first test runs after the top 180 feet (55 meters) of the shaft were lined with steel pipe, the rescue leader said.
Then the empty capsule was winched down 2,000 feet (610 meters), just 40 feet (12 meters) short of the shaft system that has been the miners’ refuge since an Aug. 5 collapse.
“We didn’t send it (all the way) down because we could risk that someone will jump in,” a grinning Golborne told reporters on Monday.
Engineers had planned to extend the piping nearly twice as far, but they decided to stop after the sleeve ? the hole is angled 11 degrees off vertical at its top before plunging down, like a waterfall ? became jammed during a probe.
Officials have drawn up a secret list of which miners should come out first, but the order could change after paramedics and a mining expert first descend in the capsule to evaluate the men and oversee the journey upward.
First out will be the four miners fittest of frame and mind, health minister Jaime Manalich said. Should glitches occur, these men will be best prepared to ride them out and tell their comrades what to expect.
Next will be 10 who are weakest or ill. One miner suffers from hypertension. Another is a diabetic, and others have dental and respiratory infections or skin lesions from the mine’s oppressive humidity.
The last out is expected to be Luiz Urzua, who was shift chief when the men became entombed, several family members of miners told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because they did not want to upset government officials.
The men will take a 20-minute ride to the surface in the capsule, which will rotate as it passes through gentle bends in the bore hole. It should take about an hour for the rescue capsule to make a round trip, Aguilar told the AP.
Plans called for the media to be blocked by a screen from viewing the miners when they reach the surface. A media platform has been set up more than 300 feet (90 meters) away from the mouth of the hole.
After being extracted, the miners will be ushered through inflatable tunnels, like the ones used in sports stadiums, to ambulances that will take them to a triage station.
Once cleared by doctors there, they are to be taken to another area where they’ll be reunited with the chosen family members. Next stop: a heliport and the flight to Copiapo.
At the hospital, all the miners will be kept for 48 hours of observation that will begin when the last one exits the escape shaft.
