At Chile mine, help comes in many forms

Above ground, the scene is alternately somber and surreal: Anxious loved ones, fingering crucifixes blessed by Pope Benedict XVI. Four scientists from NASA, warning that light deprivation is their greatest worry. A Mexican norteno band in black suits and cowboy hats, offering a USB flash drive with its songs for the men. And, giving advice on keeping spirits up, survivors of the 1972 Andean plane crash that inspired the movie Alive.

Below ground, a stomach-dropping 2,300 feet down, almost as deep as two Empire State Buildings laid end to end, are the men.

For a month now, the 33 Chilean copper miners have been trapped together in their 600-square-foot ‘refuge’, after they survived an August 5 cave-in at the San Jose mine in northern Chile. As a nation, and the rest of the world, watches transfixed, experts have swarmed the site to offer advice on how to cope.

But only ‘Los 33’, as they call themselves, really know what it is like to live with the awful darkness and isolation. In their room about the size of a modest one-bedroom apartment, the men have endured 90-degree temperatures, suffocating humidity, the skin-crawling feeling of being buried alive — and the knowledge that they may be trapped for two more months as rescuers dig through solid rock to reach them.

Andre Sougarret, the lead government engineer in the rescue effort, said on Friday that three competing holes will be drilled 200 yards from one another to open up an escape hatch for the miners as quickly as possible. One is in progress and has so far been dug down 130 feet. The second will start operation on Sunday, and the third by September 18 — Chile’s independence day. Engineers have told the miners that the targeted rescue date is sometime in the second half of November.

Keeping the miners healthy, physically and mentally, is the daunting task the Chilean government faces. At a Friday news conference, NASA and Chilean officials acknowledged that they have considered the possibility that one miner could crack and harm others.

Alicia Campos agonises over the emotional health of her 27-year-old son, Daniel, one of the trapped men. “I’m worried that the whole experience could leave a scar on his mental state, the effect of being down there so long,” said Campos, who travelled more than 500 miles to be close to him.

A 4-inch-wide shaft is the men’s lifeline to the world. Spirits have improved, health minister Jaime Manalich said, as officials have been able to deliver shirts, rubber shoes and cots to the miners through the narrow tube. The men call it La Paloma, or the pigeon.

Officials also lower food through the tube. (On Friday, the men had bread and honey, cauliflower and rice, fortified milk, pork pate and pasta salad.) The miners use a chemical toilet also sent down via the shaft; they’ve placed it in a tunnel far from their communal “living room” and travel back and forth to the privy in a small gas-powered mining vehicle. That the miners can now brush their teeth and wash their hair and clothes has “lifted their spirits”, psychologist Alberto Iturra said.

The men, whose ages range from 19 to 63, have formed work teams with specific jobs “so they don’t think about their disappointment”, said Clementina Gomez, aunt of 19-year-old miner Jimmy Sanchez. One team handles food and water, another clean-up activities and a third mine work.

Their daily routines also include regularly scheduled periods for prayer, exercise — walking around their chamber — and games, including dominoes and dice throwing.

Victor Segovia, 49, has emerged as the miners’ chronicler and is keeping a daily account of their activities. His daughter Maritza, interviewed at the tent where she and four siblings keep a vigil, said he is a compulsive writer who leaves lengthy notes every time he leaves the house or goes shopping to explain in detail what he is doing.

“He has also written me a letter every day since they were found. Here is what I’ve just received from him,” Maritza said, waving a crumpled notebook sheet covered on both sides with her father’s blocky handwriting.

According to family members, Mario Gomez, the oldest of the miners, is the spiritual leader. His wife, Liliana Ramirez, said perhaps it is her husband’s stable personality and deep religious faith that have made him someone the men turn to. “He’s a spiritual man of very few words, but he is friendly to everyone. He has worked in the mines since he was 12 years old,” Ramirez said. When she talked to him, she said, “all he has said is, ‘Don’t worry about me.’ He’s more concerned with how the family is doing.”

On Saturday, four of the survivors of the 1972 crash of a plane carrying a Uruguayan rugby team appeared at the mine to give encouragement to the miners via a fiber-optic line.

“We’re going to tell them to celebrate that they are alive, that no one was killed in the accident, to enjoy every moment,” said Gustavo Servino, one of the survivors, whose story of living more than two months in the Andes was turned into a book and movie.

“He seems happy with the little he has,” said Campos, the mother, whose son had been working in the mine for six months when the accident happened, attracted by relatively high wages offered by the owners. “He told me in our talk that he was happy that he has quit smoking down there.”

But she said that though her son was accentuating the positive, she knew he was afraid. She vowed not to leave the mine until he is rescued, however long it takes. “You can’t get anything positive from this,” she said. “He is suffering down there.”