Cheers and tears as drill reaches trapped miners

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.

Champagne sprayed and hard hats tumbled off heads as rescue workers celebrated close to the drill, hugging each other and shouting for joy.

Relatives waiting at "Camp Hope" on the surface waved Chilean flags and shouted with joy as word spread of the breakthrough, and one man frantically rang a bell even before a siren sounded to officially confirm that the escape shaft had reached the miners.

"I'm very excited, very happy," said Guadalupe Alfaro, waving a flag outside her tent in Camp Hope. Her son Carlos Bugueno, 26, is among the trapped miners. "I've wanted so long for this moment, I woke up to live this moment. My son will return soon."

"Our nervousness is gone now," said Juan Sanchez, whose son Jimmy is stuck in the mine. "Only now can we begin to smile."

Darwin Contreras, whose brother Pedro, a 26-year-old heavy machine operator, is stuck below ground, said: "We feel an enormous happiness, now that I'm going to have my brother.

"When the siren rang out, it was overwhelming. Now we just have to wait for them to get out, just a little bit longer now."

The men are still several days away from rescue. Engineers must first check the shaft and decide whether to reinforce it before pulling them to the surface.

The "Plan B" drill won a three-way race against two other drills to carve a hole wide enough for an escape capsule to pull the miners out one by one.

While "Plan A" and "Plan C" stalled after repeatedly veering off course, the "Plan B" drill reached the miners at a point 2,041ft below the surface after 33 days of drilling.

Jeff Hart, of Denver, Colorado, operated the drill, and he said the entire rescue crew erupted with cheers when the T130 broke through.

"There is nothing more important than saving, possibly saving 33 lives. There's no more important job than that," he said. "We've done our part, now it's up to them to get the rest of the way out."

The milestone thrilled Chileans, who have come to see the rescue drama as a test of the nation's character and pride, and eased some anxiety among the miners' families.

But now comes a difficult judgment call - the rescue team must decide whether it's more risky to pull the miners through unreinforced rock or to insert tons of heavy steel pipe into the curved shaft to protect the miners on their way up.

"This is an important achievement," mining minister Laurence Golborne said, but he cautioned: "We still haven't rescued anybody. This rescue won't be over until the last person below leaves this mine."

Those in charge of the rescue say the decision on how to proceed next will be a purely technical one.

While engineers have said there is only a remote chance of something going wrong, everyone involved knows how terrible it would be - politically as well as for the families - if a miner got stuck part-way up for reasons that might have been avoided.

If today`s close video examination of the shaft persuades engineers it is smooth, strong and uniform enough to let the capsule pass without significant obstacles, then rescuers plan to start pulling the men out one by one as early as Tuesday.

The miners will be initially examined at a field hospital where they can briefly be reunited with up to three close relatives.

Then they will be flown by helicopter in small groups to the regional hospital in Copiapo, where 33 fresh beds await and they will be observed for at least 48 hours.

Only after their physical and mental health is thoroughly examined will they be allowed to go home.