I remain captivated by this story... and hopefully await good news when they are able to start to bring the trapped miners our of their confinement!
This is a fascinating news story...
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – Rescuers on Monday finished reinforcing the hole drilled to bring 33 trapped miners to safety and sent a rescue capsule nearly all the way to where the men are trapped, proving the escape route works.
That means that if all goes well, everything will be in place at midnight Tuesday to begin pulling the men out of their subterranean purgatory.
Andre Sougarett, the rescue leader, said the empty capsule descended 2,000 feet (610 meters), just 40 feet (12 meters) short of the shaft system where the miners have been trapped since an Aug. 5 collapse.
"We didn't send it (all the way) down because we could risk that someone will jump in," Mining Minister Laurence Golborne told reporters, grinning.
He called the 6 a.m. test "very promising, very positive" and said the capsule, the biggest of three built by Chilean Navy engineers, "performed very well in the duct."
"It didn't even raise any dust," he said.
The steel capsule, named Phoenix I, was lowered by winch into the hole after its top 180 feet (55 meters) were encased in tubing, said Sougarett.
His deputy, Rene Aguilar, told The Associated Press it was lowered at least four times.
Engineers had originally planned to extend the 28-inch (71-centimeter) section of pipe nearly twice as far, but decided to stop for fear that a longer tube forced into the slightly angled hole risked damaging its smooth walls.
A torrent of emotions awaits the miners when they finally rejoin the outside world.
As trying as it has been for them to survive underground for more than two months, their gold and copper mine is familiar territory. Once out of the shaft, they'll face challenges so bewildering, no amount of coaching can fully prepare them.
They'll be celebrated at first, embraced by their families and pursued by more than 750 journalists who have converged on the mine, competing for interviews and images to feed to a world intensely curious to hear their survival story.
They've been invited to visit presidential palaces, take all-expense paid vacations and appear on countless TV shows.
Contracts for book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers. More money than they could dream of is already awaiting their signature.
But eventually, a new reality will set in — and for most, it won't be anything like the life they knew before the mine collapsed above their heads.
"Before being heroes, they are victims," University of Santiago psychologist Sergio Gonzalez told The Associated Press. "These people who are coming out of the bottom of the mine are different people ... and their families are too."
Officials have drawn up a tentative but secret list of which miners should come out first, but that order could change after a paramedics and mining expert are sent down to evaluate the men and oversee the journey upward.
The last out is expected to be Luiz Urzua, who was the shift chief when the men became entombed, several family members of miners told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to upset government officials.
One by one, the men will take a twisting, 20-minute ride for 2,041 feet (622 meters) up to a rock-strewn desert moonscape and into the embrace of those they love.
It should take about an hour for the rescue capsule to make a round trip, Aguilar told The Associated Press.
Goldborne said all would be ready by 12:01 a.m. Wednesday because "we have to wait for the concrete to set" around the steel tubing.
The emotional roller-coaster ride of those awaiting the miners on the surface of the coastal Atacama desert was as bumpy as ever.
Hearing that the tunnel is nearly ready "is a sensation of joy mixed with a lot of anxiety," said Maria Segovia. Her 48-year-old brother Dario is among those trapped.
When he's finally out, she said, "I'll tell him I love him, that I'm very proud of you. And then I'll kick his backside" so he never goes into a mine again," she said smiling.
Chile's government has promised each miner at least six months of psychological support.
"All of them will have to confront the media and fame, and will encounter families that aren't the same as when they were trapped," Health Minister Jaime Manalich said. "All of them will live through very difficult situations of adaptation."
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"Two drifters off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see. . ."
