To hugs, cheers and tears, rescuers today began pulling 33 men one by one to fresh air and freedom, 69 days after they were trapped in a collapsed Chilean mine almost half a mile underground.

The first of the Chilean miners trapped underground for 69 days were being winched to fresh air and freedom today amid cheers from their families and countrymen.

A drilling rig today punched through to the underground chamber where 33 miners have been trapped for 66 days under the Chilean desert, raising cheers, tears and hopes.

Rescuers reinforced a lifeline to 33 miners trapped deep underground today, ready to keep them supplied with food, water and medicine during the four months it may take to dig them out.

Dozens of people were killed in a massive earthquake which hit Chile today.

A helicopter has joined the search for an Irish backpacker missing in a remote stretch of the Chilean-Argentinian border, it emerged tonight.

The search for an Irish backpacker missing in a remote stretch of the Chilean-Argentinian border was tonight focussing on a 20km sq area.

A bus fell off a bridge and into a river south of the Chilean capital Santiago early today, killing 24 people and injuring 26.

NOT FAR from where I live there’s a forestry plantation of lodge-pole pines. If you look at it from a distance you’ll notice an odd, umbrella-shaped tree in the middle of the plantation that towers over the pines.

A CHILEAN court stripped General Augusto Pinochet of immunity from prosecution yesterday in a human rights case involving the killing of more than 100 dissidents.

The Government of Chile will present a replica sculpture of an "Easter Island Moai" to the City of Dublin at a ceremony at 11am tomorrow.