Long wait ahead for trapped miners

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.

A team of doctors and psychiatric experts also arrived at the site in the Chilean desert to help maintain the mens' sanity as well.

"We need to urgently establish what psychological situation they are in. They need to understand what we know up here at the surface: that it will take many weeks for them to reach the light," Health Minister Jaime Manalich explained.

After weeks of mistakes, new cave-ins and other false starts, a drill broke through to the miners' underground refuge yesterday and came back up carrying two notes with seemingly miraculous news: All 33 were in good condition despite being trapped since August 5.

Engineers worked through the night to reinforce the six-inch-wide bore-hole that broke through to the miners' refuge more than 2,257ft below the surface.

Using a long hose, they coated the walls with a metallic gel to decrease the risk of more rock falls in the unstable mine and make it easier to pass material in capsules nicknamed "palomas," or doves.

The first capsules - which take about an hour to descend from the surface - will include water and food in the form of a high-energy glucose gel to miners who have almost certainly lost significant weight since they were trapped with limited food supplies.

Also being sent down are questionnaires to determine each miner's condition, along with medicines and communication equipment to enable them to speak with their families during their long wait.

An enormous machine with diamond-tipped drills capable of carving a person-sized tunnel through solid rock at a rate of about 65ft a day was on its way to the San Jose gold and copper mine outside Copiapo in north-central Chile.

Engineers also were boring two more narrow shafts to the trapped men to ensure that their lifelines would remain intact while the larger tunnel is being carved.

It will be important for the men's well-being to keep them busy and well-supported throughout this ordeal, Mr Manalich said.

"There has to be leadership established, and to support them and prepare them for what's coming, which is no small thing," he said.

Euphoria that their men survived the collapse and anxiety for what is coming next meant for a sleepless night for the miners' families.

"We didn't sleep. We stayed up all night long hoping for more news. They said that new images would appear, so we were up hoping to see them," said one, Carolina Godoy.

When the drill broke through solid rock to reach the emergency refuge where the miners have gathered. The trapped men tied two notes to the end of a probe that rescuers pulled to the surface, announcing in big red letters: "All 33 of us are fine in the shelter."

"Today all of Chile is crying with excitement and joy," President Sebastian Pinera said.

And where many were beginning to give up hope, the scene above ground became a celebration, with a barbecue for the miners' families, roving musicians, candles and Chilean flags.

The men already have been trapped underground longer than all but a few miners rescued in recent history. Last year, three miners survived 25 days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China, and two miners in north-eastern China were rescued after 23 days in 1983. Few other rescues have taken more than two weeks.

The miners' survival after 17 days is unusual, but since they have made it this far, they should emerge physically fine, said Davitt McAteer, an American mine safety expert.

"The health risks in a copper and gold mine are pretty small if you have air, food and water," he said.

However the stress of being trapped underground for a long period of time can be significant.

"There is a psychological pattern there that we've looked at," he said. But "they've established communication with the guys; there are people who can talk them through that."

The miners seemed to be aware that their rescue may take a long time, according to one of them, Mario Gomez, perhaps the eldest of the trapped men at 63, who wrote a note to his wife.

"Even if we have to wait months to communicate. ... I want to tell everyone that I'm good and we'll surely come out OK," he wrote, scrawling the words on a sheet of notebook paper the miners tied to the probe. "Patience and faith. God is great and the help of my God is going to make it possible to leave this mine alive."

Chile is the world's top copper producer and a leading gold producer, and has some of the world's most advanced mining operations. But both the company that owns the mine, San Esteban, and the National Mining and Geology Service have been criticised for allegedly failing to comply with regulations.

In 2007, an explosion at the San Jose mine killed three workers.