Chile miners: rescue countdown as mine becomes unstable

Trial runs of the miners’ rescue capsule, Phoenix, have been so successful that the San Jose Mine rescue chief believes the 33 trapped Chile miners may be out sooner than expected. On Monday night, the hillside around the Plan B rescue shaft was a flurry of activity as evacuation day nears for the Chile miners, with trucks unloading equipment, pick-ups and caravans and bulldozers, still grading the area around the rescue shaft.

In one experimental ascent from a depth of 610m (2,000 feet) on Monday, the rescue capsule did not rotate or rock when loaded with 80kg of ballast, the leader of the rescue team, Andre Souggaret, said.

It was winched out at a speed of 2.5 metres per second. In earlier unweighted ascents, Phoenix had spiralled its way back up to the surface.

It is unlikely that the miners, given medical concerns about their fainting on the curved route up, would be pulled out at that speed, but even at half that rate, the planned 36-hour operation would be dramatically shortened.

All of the Channel 4 News reports on the Chile miners 

It means, according to a member of the rescue team at the Plan B site – who has spoken anonymously to Channel 4 News – that barring unforeseen problems, they might all be out by Wednesday evening. Or even earlier.

Our source confirmed other reports, however, that there is good reason to accelerate the miners’ escape. Continued vigorous drilling from the nearby rigs at Plans A and C appears to be destabilising the already precarious mine. An estimated 700,000 tonnes of rock collapsed inside the 121-year-old mine on 5 August.

Mountain creaking

“The whole mountain is creaking,” said the rescue team member, who must remain anonymous due to restrictions placed on those working at Plan B by the Chilean government.

“The miners are increasingly nervous after cracking noises were heard above them on Sunday morning. There were sharp cracking sounds followed by the crash of falling rock,” he said, adding that the cracking continued throughout Monday.

The miners had demanded that drilling cease. A medic on the rescue team said the miners had refused a request to weigh themselves because the scales were in a section of tunnel now considered too dangerous to enter.

Another source at the site told Channel 4 News that at one point a large amount of liquid mud gushed through fissures in the rock into the chamber in which the miners have taken refuge. The mud came from the Plan C drilling operation.

The Plan C rig stopped drilling, which began in August, for much of Sunday as a result, but both it and Plan A have continued operations since, in the hope of their being able to offer the miners alternative paths to salvation. Plan C is also now thought to be very close to piercing the roof of the chamber.

High spirits

Inside the chamber itself, the 33 miners who were filmed on video at the start of their ordeal are reported to be in high spirits in anticipation of their imminent rescue. They have been sent clean socks and shampoo – and even shoe polish – at their request. They are said to be cleaning the refuge in which they have now spent 66 days.

On Monday, they sang “Happy Birthday” to the miner Jose Ojeda, and promised to bake him a sugar-free cake once out. Mr Ojeda is a diabetic.
The rescue mission’s medical chief, Dr Jean Romagnoli, told Channel 4 News that he did not expect any health complications and that after two weeks of cardio-vascular training and muscle exercise, he considered all the men fit enough to make a trouble-free ascent.

The oldest miner, Mario Gomez, who is 63, is known to suffer silicosis, a respiratory disease which may have been aggravated by the low air quality – particularly after the initial collapse – but Dr Romagnoli said he didn’t think he’d have a problem. He dismissed concerns about other physical and mental ailments.

Dr Romagnoli said the last man up would be the foreman, Luis Urzua, 54, who has been the miners’ leader and who early on, set up a system of rules and regulations. The first to emerge, we’ve learned, is likely to be Florencio Avalos – the cameraman who has taken the video pictures of the miners which has been released by the Chilean government.

A member of the rescue medical teams said Florencio Avalos, one of two brothers, was selected to go first because of this experience as a miner and his good physical condition.

Another of the first miners to emerge will be the only foreigner among them, Carlos Mamani, from Bolivia.

The medical source at Plan B said: “We have also been told to bring the Bolivian guy up within the first five.

“We can’t put him in first though because then the Bolivians will think we are using him as a guinea pig. But we have been told to put him among the first five because Evo [Morales, the President of Bolivia] is here.”

The Presidents of both Chile and Bolivia actually arrive at the San Jose Mine site on Tuesday. Hundreds more journalists from all over the world have also descended on the remote mine in Chile’s Atacama desert, hugely outnumbering the families of miners who have stayed hopeful while living in tents in Camapmento Esperanza (Camp Hope) for nearly ten weeks.

The mother of the miner Daniel Herrera – who has been acting as the official assistant paramedic in the refuge down below – told us that she felt comfortable that the rescue would go well.

Alicia Campos explained that she was superstitious and that if the last of the 33 miners emerged on Wednesday, there would be what she called “a completion of numbers.”

“The first note from the miners, confirming they were all alive, contained 33 letters,” Mrs Campos said.

“The drill at Plan B reached the chamber after 33 days. And if they all come out on Wednesday, the date will be 13-10-10. Thirteen plus ten plus ten makes 33! It’s perfect.”