Chilean Miners Rescue (2010): 69 Days Underground at San José

The Chilean miners rescue of 2010 ended one of the longest underground survival ordeals ever recorded. On 5 August 2010 a collapse at the San José copper and gold mine in Chile’s Atacama Desert trapped 33 men about 700 metres below the surface. They were found alive 17 days later and, after an international drilling effort, were lifted one by one in a narrow capsule called Fénix 2 on 12-13 October 2010, watched live on television by an estimated audience of up to a billion people.

Background: an old and risky mine

The San José mine lies in the Atacama Desert about 45 kilometres north of the city of Copiapó. It had been worked for more than a century and was owned by a small company, the San Esteban mining company. Its main access was a long spiral ramp winding down into the rock, along which trucks drove to the working faces.

Mining is central to Chile’s economy, and the country is the world’s largest producer of copper. Large mines run by companies such as the state-owned Codelco had good safety records, but smaller operations were less closely supervised. San José had a history of accidents, including fatal ones, and had been closed by regulators in 2007 before being allowed to reopen. Miners were paid relatively well because of the known risks.

The collapse of 5 August 2010

Early in the afternoon of 5 August, a huge block of rock, later estimated at around 700,000 tonnes, broke away inside the mine and sealed the ramp. The 33 men working in the deeper sections were cut off. Their escape route through ventilation shafts lacked the ladders required by safety rules, and a further collapse on 7 August blocked those shafts and stopped a first rescue attempt.

The trapped men gathered in a small emergency refuge about 700 metres below the surface. It held only a few days’ worth of food for a small number of people. Under the leadership of their shift foreman, the miners divided their meagre supplies into tiny rations, drank water from tanks used to cool machinery, and organised daily routines in the heat and humidity of the deep mine, where temperatures were around 30 to 35 degrees Celsius.

Contact on day 17

At the surface, families gathered in a tent settlement that became known as Campamento Esperanza (Camp Hope). The government of President Sebastián Piñera took charge of the operation. Piñera, the first conservative elected to the presidency since the return to democracy that ended the military rule begun by the 1973 coup, had taken office in March 2010, only days after the Chile earthquake. The mining minister, Laurence Golborne, and the engineer André Sougarret of Codelco led the effort.

Rescuers drilled a series of narrow exploratory boreholes, about 15 centimetres wide, trying to hit the area where the men might be sheltering. On 22 August 2010 a drill broke into a tunnel near the refuge. When the drill bit was hauled up, a note in red ink was found attached to it, reading “Estamos bien en el refugio los 33” (“We are well in the shelter, the 33”). The news set off celebrations across Chile.

From then on, the boreholes served as lifelines. Rescuers sent down food, water, medicine, letters and clothing in narrow tubes nicknamed palomas (doves), along with a fibre-optic cable for a telephone and video link. Doctors and psychologists, including experts from NASA with experience of keeping astronauts healthy in confined spaces, advised on diet, exercise and mental health.

Drilling the rescue shaft

To bring the men out, a much wider shaft was needed. Three drilling efforts ran at the same time. Plan A used a Strata 950 raise-bore machine, Plan B used a Schramm T130 drill to widen one of the existing boreholes, and Plan C used a large oil-drilling rig.

Plan B, operated with the help of American and Chilean drilling specialists, proved fastest. On 9 October 2010 it broke through to a workshop area near the men, creating a shaft about 70 centimetres wide and roughly 620 metres long. Its upper section was lined with steel tubing to prevent rock falls.

Meanwhile the Chilean Navy, with advice from NASA, built three rescue capsules named Fénix (Phoenix). Each was a narrow steel cylinder about 54 centimetres in diameter, fitted with an oxygen supply, a harness, communication equipment and wheels to run along the shaft walls.

The rescue of 12-13 October 2010

On the night of 12 October, after test runs, a rescuer was lowered into the mine. Just after midnight on 13 October, the first miner reached the surface in the Fénix 2 capsule, about 15 minutes after leaving the bottom, and was greeted by his family and President Piñera. One by one, each man followed, wearing dark glasses to protect his eyes from daylight after weeks underground.

The last miner, the shift foreman, emerged at about 9:55 p.m. on 13 October, some 22 hours after the first rescue. Six rescuers had gone down to help prepare the men, and the last of them was brought up shortly after midnight. All 33 miners survived, most in reasonably good health, though several were treated for dental infections, eye problems and other conditions.

Aftermath and legacy

The rescue was celebrated as a triumph of engineering, organisation and endurance, and it brought Chile and its government worldwide attention. It was among the most-watched live television events of its time. Companies and specialists from many countries contributed, including American drilling specialists, a Canadian-operated oil rig and NASA medical advisers, and Chile publicly thanked them. Chilean officials put the cost of the whole operation at between 10 and 20 million US dollars, with part of the cost met by private companies and donors.

For the miners, life afterwards was often difficult. Many struggled with post-traumatic stress, money problems and the loss of the jobs they had known, and some complained that they had earned little from the books and the 2015 film The 33 based on their story. The San José mine was closed permanently.

The disaster led Chile to strengthen mining safety rules and expand its mine inspection service. Investigations criticised both the mine’s owners and the state regulators. A criminal investigation was closed in 2013 without charges, and the miners’ long legal claims for compensation from the state for failing to supervise the mine produced mixed results in the courts. The Fénix 2 capsule is now displayed at the Regional Museum of Atacama in Copiapó.

Timeline

• 2010, 5 August: A massive rock collapse traps 33 miners in the San José mine.
• 2010, 7 August: A second collapse blocks the ventilation shafts and halts the first rescue attempt.
• 2010, 22 August: A borehole reaches the miners, bringing up a note saying all 33 are alive.
• 2010, 30 August - 19 September: Three drilling plans begin work on a rescue shaft.
• 2010, 9 October: The Plan B drill breaks through to the miners.
• 2010, 13 October, after midnight: The first miner reaches the surface in the Fénix 2 capsule.
• 2010, 13 October, about 9:55 p.m.: The 33rd miner is brought up; all survive.

Why it matters

The San José rescue showed what determined cooperation between government, engineers and international experts could achieve, and it captivated the world. It also exposed the dangers of poorly supervised small mines and led Chile to tighten safety rules for an industry on which its economy depends.