Drilling to reach trapped Chile miners resumes

Engineers yesterday resumed drilling after operations were briefly suspended in the battle to reach 33 miners trapped in a collapsed Chilean mine for almost a month, a rescue worker said.

“The machine began working again at midnight. The delay had been programmed to allow cementing operations,” he added, asking to remain anonymous.

Drilling had been halted on Thursday afternoon once the crews reached 40 metres deep to cement the walls of the bore hole “to ensure no water can seep in through any cracks”, the National Emergencies Office said.

Officials have been working to keep up the morale of the miners, trapped since August 5, amid warnings that it could take until Christmas to get them out.

Official estimates are that it will take three to four months to extract the men from 700 metres below the earth’s surface. They have been told salvation is more than two months away, but not given a precise date.

Drilling was also stopped briefly on Wednesday after a geological fault was found, but the chief engineer overseeing the rescue operation, Andre Sougarret, said such stoppages had been foreseen in the risky operation.

The miners have been given nutrition, water, clothing, medication and even entertainment – videos and playing cards – to while away the long wait. They have already set a record for the longest time trapped underground.

Since Thursday, they have also been fed proper, hot meals of nutritionally balanced dishes, which “was well received by some of the miners”, according to the National Emergencies Office.

And they will soon be able to see and talk to loved ones through a video link, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said on Thursday.

The morale-boosting technology will be made possible by lowering a fiber-optic cable to the men, who were cut off deep down in the San José mine by a cave-in.