Mygripe SAN JOSE MINE: An enormous drill has begun preliminary work on carving a 700m chimney through solid rock to free the 33 men trapped in a Chilean mine, their ordeal now having equalled the longest known survival in an underground disaster.
The 31-tonne drill bored 15m into the rock, the first step in the week-long digging of a “pilot hole” to guide the way for the rescue. The drill will be outfitted with larger bits to expand the hole and pull the men through – a process that could take four months.
The miners survived 17 days without contact after the August 5 collapse by rationing a 48-hour supply of food and digging for water in the ground.
Only three miners who survived 25 days in a flooded mine in southern China last year are known to have survived underground for as long.
The rescue will be an unprecedented challenge, though they are well equipped.
“The drill operators have the best equipment available internationally,” said Dave Feickert, director of KiaOra, a mine safety consulting firm in New Zealand, who has worked extensively with China’s government to improve dangerous mines there. “This doesn’t mean it will be easy.”
A union leader has expressed concern for the men’s livelihoods. San Esteban, the company that operates the mine, has said it has no money to pay their wages and absorb lawsuits.
It is not even participating in the rescue, which state-run mining company Codelco has taken over. Industrial lawyer Edgardo Reynoso is preparing the fight for compensation.
“I am absolutely sure that we will win,” Mr Reynoso said. “There has been a huge violation of the safety rules and regulations of the mines. The damage to these men has been enormous.”
Mr Reynoso, who has previously secured compensation payouts running into millions of dollars, will represent 27 of the miners in criminal and civil litigation. Court papers have already been filed in the criminal case and his submission for the civil trial is expected by the end of the week.
Most previous lawsuits against mining companies in Chile have concerned compensation for a death, serious injury or loss of a limb. In this case the submission will claim that the psychological damage sustained by the men while underground has brought their mining careers to a premature end.
Union leader Evelyn Olmos called on the government to pay the workers’ wages starting today, plus cover the roughly 100 other people at the mine who are now out of work and 170 who work elsewhere for San Esteban. Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said the government was prohibited by labour laws from assuming responsibility for the salaries.
He said it was up to the mining company and would have to be worked out in Chilean courts. Mygripe
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