Thirty-three miners trapped underground for 17 days in a gold and copper mine in Northern Chile sent up a message tied to a drill telling rescuers they were all alive.
President Sebastian Pinera said the paper message was tied to a drill that rescuers used to bore through to the area near an underground shelter where the miners are located.
But he said it will take months to get the trapped men out.
‘The 33 of us in the shelter are well,’ read the message written with red paint on the piece of paper that Pinera held up on television, as drivers honked horns in the capital Santiago and diners applauded in restaurants.
‘It will take months (to get them out). It will take time, but it doesn't matter how long it takes to have a happy ending,’ the president said at the minehead.
The miners are 7km (4.5 miles) inside the winding mine and about 700 metres (2,300ft) vertically underground and inside a mine shaft shelter the size of a small apartment.
Authorities said they had limited amounts of food. No further details were immediately available about conditions deep inside the mine.
Relatives hugged, kissed and thanked God as news of the message reverberated outside the entrance to the mine, where they have been camped out since the mine caved in on 5 August.
‘We never, never lost faith. We knew they were there, and that they would be rescued,’ said family member Eduardo Hurtado, as other miners' relatives waved red white and blue Chilean flags and cheered.
Rescuers plan to send narrow plastic tubes called ‘doves’ down the narrow borehole with food, hydration gels and communications equipment.
The mine is unstable, and rescue workers were forced to abandon attempts to dig past the main cave-in and down a ventilation shaft.
The plan is now to dig a new shaft to enable them to escape, which will take months. Rescue workers say it could take around 120 days to dig a new tunnel to reach the miners.
Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said rescue workers would lower a camera and microphones to communicate with the miners.
Mr Pinera sacked top officials of Chile's mining regulator and vowed a major overhaul of the agency in light of the accident.
Serious mining accidents are rare in Chile, but the government says the San Jose mine, owned by local private company Compania Minera San Esteban Primera, has suffered a series of mishaps and 16 workers were killed in recent years.
