Rescue drill reaches trapped Chilean miners!

The scene at 8:30PM, Friday, October 8, before T-130 drilled the final 40 meters of rock that separates the 33 miners from the outside world.

It was a race among Plans A, B, and C of drilling from three places. It was Plan B that reached the miners first, sixty-six days after the San Jose mine collapsed and trapped them about 750 meters below the earth on 05 August.

Inside page, El Mercurio, 09 October, 2010.

 According to the reports, the drillers, the miners' families, and the miners themselves erupted in cheers when the drill broke through the rock.  The jubilation of the miners were heard via radio.

Through all these days, the families and the media have kept the miners in company above them, calling their campsite Esperanza.


"An extraordinary array of international talent had been gathered and new rescue techniques pioneered on the fly to plow through rock without compromising the miners’ safety," the New York Times reported. "Chilean officials brought in advisers from NASA, custom-built steel rescue capsules and even fed the trapped miners meat pies baked in the form of cylinders to be slipped down a narrow hole more than 2,050 feet below the surface."

The escape capsule is already at the other side of the drill tip.  El Mercurio said the rescue operations may start between the evening of Monday and Tuesday; and the New York Times said it will likely be on "Wednesday at the earliest before the miners catch their first glimpse of sunlight and breath of fresh air."

The drillers have been in constant radio contact with the miners especially when the drill tip first appeared to the latter so that "the driller could slow the machinery down, to avoid a sudden breakthrough of the entire drill, which would have put undue strain on the equipment."

The miners themselves will have to blow some places around the escape hole with dynamite to provide wider room for the escape capsules called Phoenix, by which they will be raised one by one.

"The miners will be extracted one at a time, with two capsules alternating voyages," said the New York Times. "Each capsule contains tanks of oxygen-enriched air, a hands-free phone and retractable rollers to protect it as it bounces along the wall." [See illustration from the Hoy of Ecuador, and picture of one of the capsules being tested from El Mercurio, both above.]   

 

"It remains to be decided in what order they will emerge, although officials said Friday that the strongest would likely come out first, partly so they could help guide the rescue effort at the top, advising the emergency crews on conditions below. But officials also want the fittest on the first trips in case the capsule gets stuck and needs to be physically dislodged. 
"Those in poorer health would go next, and then the rest."

The miners would be back with their families very much earlier than the initial estimate.