33 Miners trapped in Chile found ALIVE!!!
33 Miners trapped in a gold mine for two weeks were found alive!!!
They dug a hole and put a cable with a camera on it. When they pulled the cable out, there were two notes attached, saying they were alive, well, and had found shelter in a "cave" they dug, along with water they found while digging. They had a picture of a miner smiling into the camera. Only bad news is it may take up to 4 months to get them out.
Experts say the gold mines pose little risk to the miners if they are provided with food, water and oxygen until they can be rescued.
What a wonderful Christmas this will be for those poor miners and their families.
The drilling has started...
These guys need prayers for the long haul...
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/1..._mine_collapse
'Unprecedented' challenge to save Chilean miners
1 hour, 3 minutes ago
By Bradley Brooks, The Associated Press
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile - The effort to save 33 Chilean men trapped deep in a mine is an unprecedented challenge, mining safety experts said Tuesday. It means months of drilling, then a harrowing three-hour trip in a cage up a narrow hole carved through solid rock.
If all of that is successful, the freed men will emerge from the earth and "feel born again," said an American miner who was part of a group dramatically rescued in 2002 with similar techniques. But that rescue pulled men from a spot only one-tenth as deep.
"They're facing the most unusual rescue that has ever been dealt with," said Dave Feickert, director of KiaOra, a mine safety consulting firm in New Zealand that has worked to improve China's dangerous mines. "Every one of these rescues presents challenging issues. But this one is unique."
First, engineers must use a 31-ton drill to create a "pilot" hole from the floor of the Atacama Desert down 2,200 feet (700 metres) to the area in the San Jose mine where the men wait.
Then, the drill must be fitted with a larger bit to carve out a rescue chimney that will be about 26 inches (66 centimetres) wide — a task that means guiding the drill through solid rock while keeping the drill rod from snapping or getting bogged down as it nears its target.
Finally, the men must be brought up one at a time inside a specially built cage — a trip that will take three hours each. Just hauling the men up will itself take more than four days — if there are no problems.
"Nothing of this magnitude has happened before; it's absolutely unheard of," said Alex Gryska, a mine rescue manager with the Canadian government.
Gryska said he is confident Chile's state-run Codelco mining company, with its vast expertise in the world's top copper-producing nation, would successfully drill the hole out. But he said he is worried about the three to four months officials say it will take to do so — and the key role the miners themselves will play in their own rescue.
Chilean officials said the miners will have to remove upward of 3,000 tons of rock as it falls into the area where they are trapped. There is little danger to the men — the area includes a shelter and about 500 metres (yards) of a shaft outside that. But as the rock starts to fall a month from now, the men will work in nonstop shifts to remove it with wheelbarrows and industrial sweepers.
"The thing that concerns me is welfare of workers, their mental state. That will be real tough," said Gryska. "From a health perspective, it's hot down there. They're talking about working 24/7 in 85 degrees for two months. Their mental state for that work will be critical."
Early on, Chile's Health Minister Jaime Manalich said at least five of the men showed signs of depression. But spirits have improved with a supply of water, food, special clothes to keep them dry in damp conditions and the first verbal communication with loved ones this week.
Chilean officials met with four "life sciences" specialists from NASA on Tuesday in Santiago.
Michael Duncan, NASA's deputy chief medical officer who is leading the team in Chile, said his group had been asked to provide help in nutrition and behavioural health.
Duncan, speaking at a news conference in Santiago, said his team viewed two videos the miners made of themselves and their surroundings — and they clearly raised some concern about weight loss.
He said a priority was increasing the miners' caloric intake, getting them on a regular sleep schedule and ensuring they remain optimistic.
"These miners showed us tremendous strength in surviving as long as they did without any contact with the surface," he said. "What we want to try to avoid is any kind of situation of hopelessness on the part of the miners."
That could mean increasing their contact with the outside world — including bringing in celebrities or even astronauts who have survived long periods of isolation in space, Duncan said.
If the miners remain healthy during their long period underground and if the drilling goes as planned, they will then face the ordeal of being stuffed into a tubular, metal cage for three hours as they are slowly pulled up.
Experts say one of the few times such a technique was used was when nine U.S. miners were hauled out of the flooded Quecreek Mine near Somerset, Pennsylvania, in 2002. But those men were trapped for just three days 73 metres (240 feet) underground.
Quecreek survivor Mark Popernack noted the Chilean miners "already went through more than what we went through," but the Somerset, Pennsylvania, resident said no matter the method, "to come up is the best thing in the world."
"If they make it, if they get that hole drilled, when they come out of there, they'll feel like they're being born again," said Popernack.
"Enjoy the ride, that's my advice to them," he said. "It'll be a long ride, but they'll enjoy it. Because when they see the light of day, they're going to feel pretty good."
Chile could rescue miners by mid-October: Report
Copiapo, Chile - Workers in Chile expect to be able to rescue 33 trapped miners by mid-October, rather than early November as originally anticipated, a news report said Tuesday.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/world/3514257.bin
A relative of Ignacio Ortega kisses the picture of one of the miners trapped inside the San Jose gold and copper mine, near Copiapo, 800 km north of Santiago, on September 12, 2010.
Photograph by: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP/Getty Images)
The daily El Mercurio newspaper, citing unnamed government sources, reported that officials said state-of-the-art drilling equipment at the scene has made faster-than-expected progress in efforts to reach the men, who have been trapped underground since an August 5 mine collapse.
"There is a chance of completing the operation before President (Sebastian) Pinera departs for Europe on the 15th" of October, one official was quoted by the newspaper as saying.
Shortly after the mine collapse, Chilean authorities warned that it was unlikely that they would be able to free the men before Christmas, but later said a rescue could take place as early as November.
Speaking this past Sunday, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said he would not officially change the rescue timeline, but nevertheless suggested it could happen more quickly than originally anticipated.
"We have always spoken of the first days of November, but the plans now are slightly ahead of schedule," he said.
"We are gaining a day here and a day there, but we do not claim victory or generate unrealistic expectations, since we are talking about an inexact science," Golborne said, noting the complexities and safety concerns of drilling through layers of granite rock.
The rescue effort involves digging down more than 600 meters (about 2,000 feet) to get to the miners trapped since a cave-in August 5.
The men — 32 Chileans and one Bolivian — have survived underground longer than anyone on record.
They are being supplied with food, water, medicine and entertainment through three supply holes, which also carry communication lines to the surface, where family members have been camped at the entrance.
© Copyright (c) AFP
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/...#ixzz10BFxeHMg
Chile president sees miners rescued before Oct. 15
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/1..._mine_collapse
Chile president sees miners rescued before Oct. 15
1 hour, 44 minutes ago
By Vivian Sequera, The Associated Press
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile - Chile's president said Monday that his government is "very close" to pulling 33 trapped miners to safety and he hopes to be there in person to see the rescue before leaving on a trip to Europe.
It was Sebastian Pinera who told the miners after they were found alive Aug. 22 that they would be saved by Christmas, and his government has assembled a team of hundreds to support them while three simultaneous drilling operations pound escape shafts through a half-mile of rock.
The drilling has gone well enough to move up the date since then, but rescue leaders have been cautious: Only last week, they estimated a late-October pullout.
Now the president has changed the expected date again, to before his Oct. 15-22 trip.
"We are very close to rescuing them, and I hope to be able to rescue them before leaving for Europe," he told a group of Chilean radio broadcasters Monday. "We are trying to adjust the two schedules."
"For me it is very important to share this moment — not only with the 33 miners, but with their families and all Chileans," Pinera added.
The miners also are getting ready for their big day. For the last two weeks, they've been sending keepsakes up in the same capsules that carry food, clean clothes, medicine and other supplies down through a narrow borehole to their underground cavern. Letters from their families, signed Chilean flags and other things they don't want to leave behind are coming up out of the hole each day, said Alberto Iturra, the chief of a team of psychologists supporting the miners.
Told of Pinera's statement, rescue chief Andre Sougarret said he understands how anxious everyone is to rescue the men, who on Monday completed 59 days underground since the Aug. 5 collapse of more than 700,000 tons of rock sealed off the lower third of the mine.
"I understand the desire of everyone, me included, is to leave as soon as possible. Still, we can't take any risks," he said.
Setbacks also are expected. Sougarret announced that the leading T130 "Plan B" rescue drill was delayed for hours Monday to replace one of its hammers, and that the Rig 421 "Plan C" oil well drill went slightly off course in the gold and copper mine. Now the "Plan C" team is recalibrating their drill, slowing its advance. And the "Plan A" drill, which trails the other two, has been stalled since Saturday to change its hammers.
"As of now we don't have anything new that would enable us to move up the date" from the second half of October, Souggaret said.
Only when the T130 drill has reached the miners, and the team has lowered a video camera to painstakingly examine the walls of the shaft, will the rescue team decide whether to reinforce the shaft with steel tubing. That process could extend the miners' stay for three to 10 more days, but would ensure their safety should the unstable mine shift on their way up.
One of the miners, Mario Sepulveda, turned 40 Monday. Rescuers sang "Happy Birthday" to him by telephone, and sent down 33 little cakes in the "carrier pigeon" capsule that has served as their lifeline.
Also Monday, members of the mine's union protested in a plaza in Copiapo, the regional capital, demanding their pay for the second half of September and any other remaining benefits owed them by the San Esteban mining company.
Drill breaks through . . . . .
Maybe Wednesday....escape hatch being reinforced...
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/1...s_chile_miners
Chile rescuers reinforce shaft for miners' escape
50 minutes ago
By Cesar Illiano
COPIAPO, Chile (Reuters) - Chilean rescuers on Sunday reinforced an escape shaft to hoist 33 miners to freedom, bringing their stunning survival story close to its climax two months after they were trapped deep underground.
Engineers have drilled a narrow, nearly 2,050 foot-long (625-meter) shaft to evacuate the men, who have been using explosives to make room for a special capsule dubbed "Phoenix" that will lift them one-by-one to the surface.
The rescuers were inserting metal tubes to line the first 330 feet of the duct to strengthen it, and the government expects to start the evacuation on Wednesday in one of the most complex rescue attempts in mining history.
"At the moment, we're starting to send down the first tubes," said Andre Sougarret, who is leading the rescue operations.
"We hope to finish putting the tubing in place within the next 24 hours," he added.
More than two months have passed since the men were trapped when the mine collapsed. Spontaneous celebrations broke out across Chile on Saturday as news of the drilling breakthrough spread.
After weeks of prayers, vigils and simply waiting, there was laughter and music at the make-shift camp called Camp Hope that relatives have set up near the mouth of the mine.
Drivers honked car horns in the capital Santiago and people waved flags in towns across a country still recovering from the ravages of a massive February 27 earthquake.
The men's' relatives -- who danced, sang, cheered and sobbed when the drill broke through 65 days after the August 5 collapse at the small gold and copper mine in Chile's far northern Atacama desert -- could barely wait.
"I have held back tears until now, but the joy is now too great," said Cristina Nunez, whose partner Claudio Nunez is among the trapped. "I'm so happy he will be with us by my daughter's birthday!"
Among the families is weeks-old baby girl Esperanza, or "Hope," whose father is trapped miner Ariel Ticona. Ticona's wife, Elizabeth, named their daughter after the camp erected by the miners' families.
Ticona saw the birth on a video sent down a narrow bore hole that served as a life line to pass water and food to keep the men alive during the ordeal, and yearns to hold his daughter for the first time.
Once the men are winched to the surface, they will be given astronaut-style medical checks in a field hospital set up at the mine. Then they will be able to spend some time with their families, before being flown by helicopter to nearby Copiapo to be stabilized at another hospital.
The men have set a world record for the length of time workers have survived underground after a mining accident. After spending so long below ground in a humid, dimly-lit tunnel, their eyesight will need time to adjust.
"They will come to the surface with their eyes closed and will immediately put on dark glasses which will protect them from the light," Health Minister Jaime Manalich said. "They will keep them on night and day ... until they get used to natural light."
The miners are in remarkably good health, although some have developed skin infections.
The government brought in a team of experts from the U.S. NASA space agency to help keep the men mentally and physically fit during the protracted rescue, which has gripped the world and drawn messages of support from Pope Benedict and World Cup soccer stars.
The men lost an estimated 22 pounds (10 kg) each in the 17 days before they were found.
(Writing by Simon Gardner and Helen Popper, editing by Philip Barbara)
