Tuesday, October 12, 2010

First Chilean San Jose Miner Surfaces After Spending 69 Days Underground

Florencio Antonio Avalos Silva arrives on the surface.

Chile and family members celebrate rescue as the world watched.

By H. Nelson Goodson
October 12, 2010

San Jose Mine, Chile - On Tuesday, the first rescuer Manuel Gonzalez Pavaz was lowered just before midnight into the mine, while the world watch through live coverage. Afterwards, Florencio Antonio Avalos Silva, 30, left the underground mine just after 12:01 a.m. on Wednesday Chile time. He arrived on the surface at about 12:17 a.m. and became the first of 33 trapped miners to be brought to the surface in a 13-foot tall rescue claustrophobic capsule shaped like a bullet. The capsule was equip with a communication device, an oxygen mask and tinted goggles for miners to protect their eyes from daylight or lights from media cameras when they reach the surface.
Avalos Silva had been underground since August 5, when a chamber corridor of the mine collapsed and blocked the exit about a half a mile from the surface of the San Jose mountain in the Atacama Desert.
Chilean President Sebastian Piñera in a press conference said, the San Jose Mine will not reopen until safety measures are established and can operate safely. Piñera assured that all the mines in Chile will be brought up to safety codes.
The second rescuer Roberto Rios was lowered and arrived at the mine shelter site at 12:44 a.m. and the second miner Mario Sepúlveda, 40, was prepared and began his journey at 12:55 a.m. to the surface. Sepúlveda arrived yelling of joy to the surface at 1:09 a.m. The next miner to surface at 1:50 a.m. was Juan Illanos Palma, 52. He reached the surface at 2:08 a.m. The fourth miner, Carlos Mamani Soliz, 24, from Bolivia began to exit the mine at 2:53 a.m. and arrived at the surface at 3:09 a.m. The rescue process will be ongoing for at least 46 hours. The miners have spent 69 days underground,
The operation to extract the miners began shortly after 6:00 p.m. (5:00 E.T.) and will take about an hour, including the turn around time to bring each miner to the surface totaling at least 48 hours. It will take a few minutes to strap the miner into the capsule, to hoist the capsule to surface will take between 10-15 minutes and to return the capsule to the underground shaft will take another 25-30 minutes, said Laurence Golborne, Mining Minister.
Each miner received new socks, underwear, and a green moisture resistant coveralls before surfacing. They will also get a take home towel, both the towel and coveralls will have their names on it.
The first five to be extracted from the mine would be the miners with the most technical experience, who are expected to advise the surface rescuers about getting the rest of the men out. The second group of five men will be those with minor medical conditions.
The foreman for the shift, Luis Alberto Urzua Iribarren, 54, is expected to be the last miner to surface and will go into the Guinness World Record as the longest miner to be trapped underground for more than nine weeks and survive.
More than 1,700 media personnel from 39 countries have been at Camp Hope to cover the last phase of the rescue. They brought their own noisy power generating equipment that can be heard all around the camp Hope.
The Chilean government also provided a major news televise network pool for the rest of world countries seeking to cover the history making event.
A Chilean mine executive, Leonardo Farkas has given a $10,000 dollar check to each family in the name of each of the 33 miners that were trapped and has set up a fund to collect donations.
Family members of 27 workers have filed a $10 million dollar lawsuit against the San Jose Mine owners claiming that negligence contributed to the collapse of the mine. They are also planning to file a similar lawsuit against government regulators, according to media reports.
So far, the cost of the rescue has been estimated between $9.7 million to $22 million U.S. dollars. The San Jose Mine owners who also own other mines around Chile were planning to file bankruptcy to avoid paying for the rescue, according to their attorney. But the government intervene and froze all the assets of the San Jose Mine, including the other mines the owners have to make sure they do get to pay for the cost incurred and to help families with funds that were affected by the mine incident.
Other miners who escaped and were injured have been without work since August 5.

Photo and profile for each miner provided at BBC News link at: http://bbc.in/b96yYH

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