The Thirty-Three Miners

Part One · The Collapse

In August of 2010, thirty-three men went to work at the San Jose mine, which cuts deep into a mountain in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The men rode a long, winding tunnel down into the rock to dig for copper and gold. On the fifth of August, a huge section of the mountain inside the mine slid loose and blocked the only road out. When the dust finally settled, the men were unhurt, but they were trapped about seven hundred meters underground, which is more than two thousand feet below the surface. It was a normal workday.

The miners gathered in a small, strong room called the refuge, where they found a little food that was meant to last two or three days. The shift leader, Luis Urzua, understood that rescue could take a very long time, so he made a careful plan. Every two days, each man would eat only a spoonful of tuna, a sip of milk, and half a cookie. The men drank water from the machines, and they kept to the plan every single day, which almost certainly saved their lives. The plan was simple and very strict.

Part Two · Hope From Above

Far above them, rescue teams began to drill holes into the mountain, hoping to hit the place where the men might be waiting. The rock was extremely hard, and the drills had to travel a very long way, so many of the holes missed the refuge completely. Meanwhile, the families of the miners built a camp outside the mine, and they named it Camp Hope. They lit candles, hung banners with the names of the men, and waited day after day without knowing whether anyone was still alive. It was a long, hard wait.

Seventeen days after the collapse, a drill pushed through into the refuge, and the miners heard it banging against the rock. They ran toward the noise, and they taped a note to the drill bit before it was pulled back up. When the drill reached the surface, the note was still there. It said, in Spanish, that all thirty-three of them were well in the shelter. People cheered across Chile, because after more than two weeks of fear, the whole world finally knew that the miners were alive. It was a joyful moment.

Now the rescuers could send supplies down through narrow tubes that they nicknamed little doves. Through the tubes came water, food, medicine, and letters from home, along with a tiny camera and a phone line so that the men could see and speak to their families. The doctors worried about the minds of the miners as much as their bodies, because the men were living in a hot, damp place without any sunlight. So they sent down exercise plans and daily tasks to keep everyone busy. It was a lifeline.

The miners did their part, too, by organizing their life underground like a small town. They chose one area for sleeping, another for eating, and a third for working, and every man was given a job so that nobody felt useless or left out. Some of them cleaned, while others kept track of the days. They prayed together, and sometimes they argued, but they always settled their quarrels. Later, the men said that they survived those weeks only because they stayed together as a single team. It was a smart way to cope.

Part Three · The Rescue

On the surface, engineers designed a plan to drill a much wider hole, one large enough for a person to travel through. They knew it would take months, and several drills began to work at the same time. Teams from other countries offered their help, and a company in the United States sent a powerful drill. The workers had to be extremely careful, because a mistake could cause another collapse inside the mountain. So they moved slowly, checked every measurement, and lined part of the hole with steel pipe. Safety came first.

After about two months, one of the drills broke through into the mine, leaving a hole only about two feet wide. The engineers then built a rescue capsule that was just thin enough to fit inside it. They named it the Phoenix, after a bird from an old legend that rises up again. The capsule was a narrow steel tube with wheels that rolled along the walls of the hole, and a brave person inside had to stand up straight for the entire ride to the surface. It was a clever design.

The rescue began late on the night of October twelfth. A skilled rescue worker rode down first to make sure that everything worked, and then the first miner stepped inside the capsule and rose slowly through the dark. The trip took about fifteen minutes. When the door opened at the top, his family was waiting with open arms. Every miner wore dark sunglasses to protect eyes that had not seen the sun in more than two months, and each one was examined by a doctor right away. It was a tense, emotional night.

One by one, the men came up while millions of people around the world watched on television. There was cheering and crying every time the capsule returned. Late in the day, the last man to ride up was Luis Urzua, the shift leader, who had stayed below until every one of his men was safe. The whole rescue took about twenty-two hours, which was faster than anyone had expected. After sixty-nine days underground, all thirty-three of the miners had made it back to their families. It was a moment the world will remember.

The story of the thirty-three miners is still told today, because it teaches us something important about what people can do when they stay calm and share what they have. The miners kept hope alive by working as a team, and the rescuers refused to give up, even when the odds seemed small. Because of their courage, a mine that began with a frightening day and a very long wait ended with one of the happiest days that the people of Chile have ever known. It is a true story of hope.