Miners lived for 33 days on 2 days of rations

By Federico Quilodran, Copiapo, Chile

Thursday, August 26, 2010

THEIR self-imposed rations were meagre: Two spoonfuls of tuna, a sip of milk, a bite of cracker and a morsel of peach every second day.

That iron discipline kept 33 miners trapped a half-mile underground alive for 17 days on just two days’ worth of emergency rations.

And that same strength may be needed while they wait for rescuers to dig a tunnel wide enough to get them out — an operation that Chilean officials say may take until Christmas.

A steady flow of emergency supplies was sent down in a metal tube called a "paloma", Spanish for dove.

Although the drill hole was now providing them with sustenance and water, and a line of communication to families, officials were worried how they would hold up once they knew they would be prisoners of the earth for perhaps the rest of the year.

That news was being withheld from the miners out of concern for their mental health.

The miners say they are enduring "hell" underground.

The 33 men, living deep below ground now for 21 days, pleaded with President Sebastian Pinera to save them, in an exchange over an intercom line dropped through a narrow drill hole.

"We are waiting for all of Chile to do everything to get us out of this hell," said group leader Luis Urzua.

"The way that they have rationed the food, just as they’ve performed throughout this crisis, is an example for all of us," Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said after talking with the miners at length through an intercom system lowered into their underground refuge, the size of a small bedroom.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera vowed not to abandon the miners in a telephone conversation with Urzua, 54, the shift foreman who has been the miners’ leader.

"You will not be left alone, you have not been alone. The government is with you all, the entire country is with you all," Pinera said.

The miners were plunged into darkness by the August 5 collapse of the main shaft of a gold and copper mine in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert. They gained contact with the outside world on Sunday when rescuers drilled a narrow bore-hole down to their shelter after seven failed attempts.

The miners said they conserved the use of their helmet lamps, and can still reach many chambers and access ramps.

They have used a separate area some distance from their reinforced refuge as their toilet. But they have mostly stayed in the refuge, where they knew rescuers would try to reach them.

The room has become stiflingly hot and stuffy. Leaving it allows them to breathe better air, but wandering too far is risky in the unstable mine, which has suffered several rock collapses since the initial accident.

Rescue efforts have advanced considerably as a third bore-hole prepared to break through to the miners, and a huge machine arrived from central Chile for carving a tunnel just wide enough for the miners to be pulled out one-by-one. But that machine won’t begin drilling for several days.

Meanwhile, three 15cm shafts will serve as the miners’ "umbilical cords" — one for supplies, another for communications and a third to guarantee their air supply.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, August 26, 2010