Rescuers begin drilling today to free miners
President Sebastian Piñera is reportedly pressuring rescuers to get the miners out before September 18, the bicentennial anniversary of Chile’s independence from Spanish colonial rule.
“Plan B has already been designed,” Health Minister Jaime Manalich said on Saturday, noting details would be released soon.
Under current plans, an Australian-made hydraulic bore will drill a hole 66cm (26 inches) wide to pull the miners out one at a time from the hot and damp shelter where they are huddled underground.
“The drilling machine is being installed... we expect to start working with it on Monday morning,” the engineer in charge of the rescue operation, Andre Sougarret, said on Saturday.
“The shaft we’re drilling to the shelter will go down 702m (2,303ft) in a straight line” to the trapped miners.
Sougarret said the drilling operation was expected to last three to four months, in line with previous estimates.
The hydraulic bore drills at a maximum rate of 20m (66ft) per day. The initial narrow shaft it will dig will have to be doubled in diameter to allow a man to pass through, Sougarret explained.
Officials are also considering drilling where the main entrance ramp to the San Jose gold and silver mine collapsed on August 5, though some engineers fear the site remains unstable.
A third alternative being tabled suggests broadening an already existing shaft some 12cm (5 inches) wide about 300m (985ft) from the emergency shelter where the miners are confined.
According to Geotec, the company owning the drill- ing equipment, expanding that shaft could free the men in about 60 days, two whole months ahead of early estimates.
The miners, who have access to several hundred metres of unblocked tunnel, can easily reach that rescue site. “We can broaden the hole that is already there with the latest generation machines and using a wider diameter bore,” said Geotec manager Walter Herrera.
He said government experts were studying his proposal. But Mining Minister Laurence Golborne earlier rejected reports of an early rescue.
Golborne said that while the Australian-made bore went to work, engineers would also be widening a third existing access shaft to the miners’ shelter from 10.2cm to 30.5cm (4-12 inches) so bigger objects can be sent down to them.
He said once completed, engineers would consider the possibility of widening that access shaft even further to the point that the miners can be extracted.
Manalich said five depressed miners were doing much better after receiving food, vitamins and communicating with friends and relatives.
Four officials from the US space agency NASA are due in Chile by today to provide expertise.
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