SAN JOSE MINE, Chile: The rescue of the 33 trapped Chilean miners is to begin this afternoon, with a 31-year-old father of two chosen as the first man out.
Thousands at the site are excitedly waiting to see the first of the miners triumphantly emerge from a 10-week underground ordeal.
He is reportedly driver Florencio Avalos, the second in command in the work crew, whose brother Renan is also trapped.
The sense of anticipation was palpable just hours before the start of an operation to hoist up the miners, set to get under way in a few hours' time after a delay today to test telecommunications equipment.
It is expected to take at least an hour for each rescue, with about 20 minutes for the miner to be hoisted up the 620m rescue shaft individually in a specially designed capsule.
A paramedic will be sent down and up the shaft first to test the capsule. Live video shows the capsule being prepared for its first mission.Florencio will be followed by Mario Sepulveda, 39, an electrical specialist, who is also married, and then by Carlos Mamani, the only Bolivian in the group of the 33 trapped miners. Each man will be flown to hospital immediately after their rescue and reunited with up to three relatives, officials have said.
Avalos had been the second in command of the group before the collapse, assisting his friend Luis Urzua. But friends describe him as shy. After the men were found and cameras sent down, he often acted as cameraman, taking pictures of the other miners - a role that frustrated relatives who saw little of him in the videos.
"I am not surprised'' that he was chosen, his mother Maria Silva said after word reached the family. "I am so proud of him.''
"We made a promise to never surrender, and we kept it,'' Chilean President Sebastien Pinera said, shortly before two rescue workers were expected to go down to prepare the miners for their trip. The President said the first miner will be brought up about two hours later.
The outdoor tent village, dubbed Camp Hope, which has sprung up outside the mine to house the men's families has become increasingly frenetic in the past few days, with thousands flocking to the site to witness the historic rescue.
Now the mood is more frenzied than ever, in anticipation of today's happy ending to what many initially feared was Chile's worst ever mining disaster.
The miners' relatives were preparing for joyful and tearful reunions ahead. But there was also a touch of anxiety.
“I'm a little nervous, we've never spent so much time apart,” said Cristina Nunez, the longtime partner of miner Claudio Yanez.
“I didn't sleep much. I went to bed at 4:30am and woke up at 6am,” said Alberto Segovia, who has been maintaining an anxious vigil for his brother Dario.
The men have been trapped for 10 weeks, since an August 5 mine collapse, turning their unprecedented underground survival into a tale of immense international human interest.
The 32 Chileans and one Bolivian have become national heroes and imminent media stars, with books, movies and a barrage of press coverage likely from the moment they emerge from the mine.
In the ultimate sign of just how big a spectacle the miners' rescue has become, television megastar Don Francisco - one of the biggest celebrities in all of Latin America - was preparing to broadcast from the site.
“I haven't seen so much media attention since the Apollo XI back in 1969,” said the Chilean performer, referring to the NASA mission that sent men to the moon for the first time.
A household name throughout Latin America, Don Francisco was just one of the hundreds of journalists milling around at the entrance to the mine, their numbers swelling with each passing hour ahead of the start of the rescue.
Top dignitaries were also arriving, with Mr Pinera being joined later by his Bolivian counterpart Evo Morales.
The blaring of a siren, and a pulsating light were to announce the arrival of each miner at the surface, signaling to waiting medical teams to be on the alert.
Chile has taken extensive precautions to ensure the miners' health and privacy, sending down Navy special forces paramedics to prepare them for the trip and using a screen to block the top of the shaft from more than 1000 journalists at the scene.
The miners will be ushered through an inflatable tunnel, like those used in sports stadiums, to an ambulance for a trip of several hundred metres to a triage station for an immediate medical check. They will gather with a few family members, in an area also closed to the media, before being transported by helicopter to a hospital.
Each ride up is expected to take about 20 minutes, and authorities expect they will be able to haul up roughly one miner an hour.
The only media allowed to record them coming out of the shaft will be a government photographer and Chile's state television channel. Their images will be delayed about 30 seconds or more to prevent the release of anything unexpected.
The worst technical problem that could happen, rescue coordinator Andre Sougarett told The Associated Press, is that ``a rock could fall,'' potentially jamming the capsule partway up the shaft. But test rides suggest the ride up will be smooth.
Panic attacks are the rescuers' biggest concern. The miners will not be sedated - they need to be alert in case something goes wrong. If a miner must get out more quickly, rescuers will accelerate the capsule to a maximum 3 meters per second, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said.
AFP, AP
(source:theaustralian.com.au)
No comments:
Post a Comment