79 Rescued The Chilean Mining Accident

CHAPTER 1 The Story Begins "WE FELT LIKE THE MOUNTAIN WAS COMING DOWN ON TOP OF US -THEN CAME THE DUST CLOUD, FOUR OR FIVE HOURS IN WHICH WE COULDN'T SEE ANYTHING." With these words, the leader of a group of miners, Luis Urzüa, describes the terrible moment when the mine collapsed. It was 2 p.m. on August 5, 2010. Luis and 32 other men were working in the mine as usual. Suddenly rocks began to fall from the roofs and walls, making a cloud of dust. The nightmare that every miner has always imagined was coming true. The confused, frightened men called out to each other in the dark. Who was dead and who was alive? Soon all 33 of them had been counted. Incredibly, all the miners had survived.

But what should they do next? The miners looked for a way out, but found none. They wondered if rescuers would come and how long it would take them. They asked themselves how they would cope while they waited. And so began a nightmare that those men will never forget. The story started at the San Jose copper and gold mine in the Atacama Desert, in Chile, but reached the homes and the hearts of people all over the Copper mines have been very important in Chile for centuries, and most of them are in the Atacama Desert. This is one of the driest and most difficult places to live on Earth, but it is very important for the Chilean economy. Chile gets about a third of its money by selling copper from these mines to other countries. So for many people, Chile is a country of mines, and the miners who work there are the heart of Chile.

Mining has always been a dangerous job, and accidents happen quite often all over the world. Some of these disasters have been really terrible. In France in 1906, an accident killed 1,099 miners. Since then, however, better safety rules have made mines less dangerous places to work. In Chile, the safety in large mines was generally good in 2010, but in smaller mines, the rules were not always followed. The San Jose mine was a small mine about 45 kilometers north of the town of Copiapo. It was also an old mine; it opened 121 years before the accident happened. Many people knew that the mine was unsafe. Between 1998 and 2010, there had been several accidents and at least three miners had lost their lives.

The owners, the San Esteban Mining Company, had been fined 42 times between 2004 and 2010 for not following safety rules. Workers were also paid more than in other mines to encourage them to work there. One leader of a workers' organization said that the managers worked "without listening to the voice of the workers when they say there is danger." Disaster was waiting to happen! On the day of the accident, two groups of miners were working in the mine. When it collapsed, the group nearest the exit escaped. Urzüa and his group didn't. They were trapped 700 meters below the ground and five kilometers from the exit. The men managed to get to an emergency refuge where they found some food and water. But there was no daylight and it was very hot and dusty. And although they didn't know it yet, this would be their home for the next 69 days!

CHAPTER 2 Above and Below the Ground ABOVE THE GROUND, EXPERTS START PLANNING THE RESCUE, WHILE UNDER THE ATACAMA, THE MINERS START LEARNING TO SURVIVE. Below the ground, Luis Urzüa immediately realized that things were very serious for the miners. As group leader, he started organizing the men. They went into different tunnels to look for a way out. But they found only rocks. Another possibility was to climb up through the ventilation tunnel. It hadn't collapsed in the accident, but when the miners looked, they found there were no ladders. Although the company had been told during earlier safety checks to put ladders there, they hadn't done it. The men were definitely trapped.

In modern mines, there are usually elevators that go from the surface to the tunnels in the mine below. However, the San Jose mine was very old and there were no elevators. The paths to the deeper parts of the mine were long and winding. Because of this, Urzüa knew that a rescue operation would be very complicated. Maybe they would have to survive underground for many days. The miners would have to cope with many problems if this happened. To get light, the miners could use the machines in the mine to charge the batteries in their head lamps. They could also get a little natural water from the ground, but not enough. There was some water in the machines too, but it wasn't very clean. Food was one of their biggest worries. There were only enough cans of food in the refuge for two to four days, so they had to make them last for as long as possible. Each miner was allowed a tiny piece of tuna fish, a spoonful of fruit, and some milk from those cans every 48 hours. It wasn't much. Two weeks after the accident, each miner had lost about eight kilos. Things were looking very bad!