Back Above Ground
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Top: Miner Juan Illanes (left) celebrates after being rescued from the collapsed San Jose gold and copper mine where he was trapped with 32 other miners for over two months near Copiapo, Chile. Above left: An early message in Spanish from the miners: "We are OK in the refuge, the 33 miners". Above center: Katherine Angulo, friend of trapped miner Victor Zamora, tears up while watching the screen as Zamora becomes the 14th miner to come up on Oct 13. Bottom left: Miner Victor Segovia is wheeled to a field hospital after reaching the surface to become the 15th man to surface in the Phoenix capsule. Above right: Miner Edison Pena, an Elvis Presley fan, was offered a visit to Graceland after coming up in the slender capsule. Bottom right: Chileans celebrate after the successful rescue of all 33 men from the shaft. Photography by Reuters, China Foto Press and Associated Press |
Heartfelt homecoming for Chile's rescued miners
Chile's rescued miners began heading home to a hero's welcome on the weekend after their miracle survival for two months deep underground, and now yearn to put the psychological trauma of their ordeal behind them. The miners returned to neighbors?cheers and confetti after their rescue from the depths of a collapsed mine.
"This is really incredible. It hasn't sunk in," said 52-year-old Juan Illanes amid roaring cheers, still wearing the dark sunglasses he and his fellow miners were given to protect their eyes as they acclimatize after 69 days underground in a dark tunnel.
Most of the men are surprisingly healthy considering they were stuck in a wet, hot and dark tunnel for so long.
The miners, who set a world record for survival underground, were finally hoisted to the surface in a metal capsule. The rescue operation was watched on live television by hundreds of millions of people worldwide and triggered celebrations across the South American nation.
They have returned as celebrities - and to job offers, gifts and invitations from Real Madrid and Manchester United to travel to Europe to watch soccer matches. A Greek mining company offered to fly each one, with a companion, for a week's vacation in the Mediterranean.
Avid Elvis Presley fan Edison Pena has even been invited to Graceland, the late Presley's former home in Memphis, Tennessee.
President Sebastian Pinera visited the hospital on Thursday and posed with the miners, most of whom were wearing bathrobes and slippers, for a group photo.
He also invited the miners to visit the presidential palace toward the end of the month for a soccer match against members of his cabinet and himself.
"The team that wins will stay in La Moneda (presidential palace). The team that loses goes back to the mine," he joked.
Earlier, the president was in no mood for laughs as he launched an investigation and demanded reforms.
"Never again in our country will we permit people to work in conditions so unsafe and inhuman as they worked in the San Jose Mine, and in many other places in our country," said Pinera.
When the mine caved in, all 33 men were believed to have died, but rescuers found them 17 days later with a bore hole about as wide as a grapefruit.
That tiny hole became an umbilical cord used to pass down hydration gels, water and food to keep them alive until a bigger shaft could be bored to bring them up.
Reuters
(China Daily 10/17/2010 page6)
