The drilling was crucial to evacuate the 33 miners trapped in Chile for more than two months ended on Saturday, setting off celebrations among family members who are close to the final redemption, the greatest achievement of global survival underground.
Sirens, horns and bells were heard outside the mine as a sign that the machine completed its drilling up to 622 meters deep, to begin the final phase to rescue 32 workers and one Bolivian Chilean, in an unprecedented operation in the mining sector.
“What happiness! I will have my son,” said the mother of Daniel Herrera, one of the trapped miners.
The T-130 drilling machine worked all night on Friday and early Saturday to reach the final meters of a key pipeline, which will now be the umbilical cord that will bring back to light the miners.
“It seems strange but we had 33 days to drill to rescue 33 miners. There is still a long way to go (…), but has completed a new step, an important milestone in this process of rescue,” he told reporters Chile’s Mining Minister, Laurence Golborne.
Now, the heads of the rescuers must decide whether to reinforce the pipeline with steel pipes in whole or part and then be tested before starting to lift the miners to the surface in special capsules barely wider than the shoulders of a person in a task that would take several days.
Friends of the trapped miners embraced with great excitement and applause in the midst of readying for the final phase of the rescue after long days of vigils by candlelight in the gold and copper mine located in the remote Atacama Desert since the collapse of August 5.
“I get the heart,” said the mother of Jimmy Sanchez, one of the miners of 19 years.
After confirming that marked the depth was reached, the mining minister said that now define when and how to make the final rescue.
“At the end of today (Saturday) will give information about them to know what steps to follow,” said Golborne, whose handling of the operation allowed it to be the highest official in the government’s popularity.
Government sources said the initial idea would be to reinforce the first 60 meters of the pipeline steel perforated tubes, because the rock would be more fragmented in that area. But the final decision was taken after an assessment of the images from a video camera that will fall to the bottom of the mine in the coming hours.
If it is ultimately only reinforces the first part of the pipeline, experts have estimated that the rescue as such would occur between Monday and Tuesday next week, with the support of two to four experts who descend into the mine by the metal housing.
Despite the milestone was achieved with the drilling, Golborne said the trapped miners know that there are still some steps to return to the surface.
‘The miners are very quiet, much calmer than the press’, he said, surrounded by reporters, cameramen and photographers from dozens of local and foreign media stationed at the site.
Some of the men sent back to the surface memories, such as letters, crucifixes and clothes were delivered through close communication products.
After the collapse, engineers conducted initially narrow holes, the width of a grapefruit, to find men. From one of these holes, on August 22.
This first sign of life, 17 days after the accident, not only sparked celebrations around the world, but an unprecedented rescue operation. Since then it has sent food, water, high-energy gel and medications through the narrow pipes to keep them alive.
The first video images captured with a camera that went down the kind of umbilical cord showed the men punched bearded, bare-chested to deal with the heat and humidity in the depth of the small site in the heart of the mining region Chile, the world’s largest producer of copper.
Trapped for 65 days so far, men have set a world record time of workers who have survived underground after a mine accident. They are in surprisingly good health conditions, although some have skin infections.
The wife of President Sebastian Pinera, Cecilia Morel, traveled constantly to Camp Hope, which the family rose to the mine entrance, to provide psychological help to the relatives of the workers.
The government called an expert team of U.S. space agency, Nasa, to help keep men in good physical and mental state during the long rescue operation.
By the time the rescue of the miners, is expected to Pinera and his counterpart President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, are in the camp for the protagonists of this feat of survival.
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