Chilean rescue teams are preparing to launch a new operation to rescue 33 miners who have been trapped deep underground for more than two weeks.
The men are alive and apparently in good health.
But it could be months before the trapped miners are freed as rescuers need to drill new shaft, according to Andres Sougarret, the engineer in charge of the mission.
The operation is expected to take ‘at least 120 days,’ he explained, adding that rescue teams will use a larger and more powerful drill to bring the miners out.
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera stunned his nation and the world yesterday, when he announced that a written note sent from the San Jose gold and copper mine near the city of Copiapo through a bore hole proved that all the 33 miners were alive and apparently well.
‘All 33 of us are well inside the shelter,’ said the note, written in bold red capital letters.
Mr Pinera read the message aloud and waved it in the air, as friends and relatives gathered outside the northern Chilean mine whose entrance collapsed on 5 August, trapping the workers inside.
His words were met by a roar of cheers after days of fading hopes outside the mine located 800km north of Santiago.
A camera lowered down the bore hole drilled 700m into the earth showed the miners sweaty and shirtless in the hot shelter, but in apparently good condition and high spirits.
National Emergency Office regional director Carlos Garcia said the trapped miners had some water and lights and that in the next few hours they would get fresh supplies of food and water, which they would have to ration carefully.
Mr Garcia said relatives would be soon allowed to speak with their loved ones through a cable dropped down the drill bore.
Rescuers said the miners would have to assist in their own release by clearing debris away from the hole beneath ground as drillers worked from above.
During the past two weeks, some 500 people clambered to the mine on top of a mountain in Chile's Atacama desert to pray for the trapped men.
