Chile: Freedom against all the odds

SAN JONE MINE - Some cried, others prayed, most just smiled and wrapped their arms around the wives, parents and children they last held almost 70 days ago.

They were too exhausted to say much, but one of the most exuberant men found the energy to sit up in his stretcher and ask his wife an all-important question: "How's the dog?"

One by one, the 33 men who had been trapped almost three-quarters of a kilometre below the surface of the San Jose copper mine in northern Chile's Atacama desert continued to emerge into the fresh air yesterday, in a rescue operation cheered by a nation and watched around the world.

As each member of "Los 33" stepped out of the Phoenix rescue capsule, cheers rang over the sprawling hillside encampment of Camp Hope.

When the first survivor, a shy 31-year-old called Florencio Avalos, emerged shortly after midnight local time, a cloud of red, white and blue balloons was released into the freezing night sky. Church bells rang across the nation. Some onlookers sobbed, others hugged each other, chanting the name of a proud country: "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!"

On a screen outside the camp's canteen, onlookers saw Avalos embrace his wife, Monica, and son, Bairon. Then he bear-hugged the rescue team, along with President Sebastian Pinera, and gave a thumbs-up to onlookers as he was stretchered into the medical facility.

An hour later, an exuberant Mario Sepulveda came to the surface. He pumped his fist, jumped up and down, shouted "I'm so happy!", waved a flag, and led the crowd in chants of "Long live Chile". Then he pulled out a bag of rocks, which he presented to rescuers as "souvenirs" from the mine.

It was Sepulveda who asked about the health of the family dog. The papers called him "The Presenter" because of the comic video recordings he had sent to the surface. Now they've dubbed him "Super Mario".

As night turned to day, the speed of each rescue, which involved sending the tight-fitting escape capsule down a 55cm-wide shaft through more than 600m of solid rock, quickened.

By 10pm, all 33 were back on the surface. Many of their first steps of freedom mixed raw emotion with incongruous flourishes. Jimmy Sanchez, at 19 the youngest of the men, emerged waving the banner of his favourite football team, Universidad de Chile.

Claudio Yanez, who had accepted a marriage proposal from partner Cristina during his time underground, ran into his new fiancee's arms and kissed her so vigorously that her hard hat fell off.

The lone foreigner among the men, a Bolivian called Carlos Mamani, stepped out of the Phoenix to a crowd of workmen waving his nation's flag. After embracing his wife, he pointed to the Chilean flag on his T-shirt and shouted: "Thank you, Chile!"

His words were loaded with significance since Chile and Bolivia are longstanding territorial rivals which do not even have diplomatic relations. In what observers have dubbed "mine diplomacy"", Mamani's President, Evo Morales, attended the rescue operation and gave a press conference with Pinera, his supposed enemy.

Not everyone's face was a picture of joy. The 21st miner to emerge, Yonny Barrios, hugged his mistress, Susana Valenzuela, while his wife waited at home, having been alerted to the other's existence by a chance meeting in Camp Hope over a month ago.

The unthinkable odds over which the men have triumphed, surviving the first 17 days on rations of two spoons of tuna, two sips of milk and a cracker every 48 hours, are being ascribed to an act of God by their families, who had built Catholic shrines at Camp Hope and received a congratulatory message from the Pope yesterday.

Two previously agnostic men "found religion" during their time underground, attending daily prayer sessions. When the 63-year-old man who helped convert them, Mario Gomez, reached the surface, he hugged his wife, unfurled a Chilean flag and dropped to his knees in prayer.

Omar Reygadas, another of the spiritual leaders among "Los 33", emerged holding a Bible.

Organisers of this well-run operation would not talk about miracles until all 33 miners had been saved, and the last of the workers who descended into the mine to oversee the rescue had returned.

However, from early on they were confident enough to abandon a cautious plan to restrict images of the rescue by covering the main view of the top of the escape hole with a large Chilean flag. They also decided to make public a live feed from inside the mine.

The world was able to watch extraordinary footage of the moment when the Phoenix capsule dropped into the chamber for the first time, carrying a heroic rescue worker, Mario Gonzalez. He smiled and walked out to greet the bare-chested miners amid applause and handshakes.

"This rescue operation has been so marvellous, so clean, so emotional that there was no reason not to allow the eyes of the world, which have been watching so closely, to see it," said Chile's President, in a speech explaining the decision to screen the footage.

At Copiapo hospital yesterday about half the 33 miners ate their first meal of chicken, rice and yoghurt. Several have problems with their teeth and some have eye problems. Mario Gomez, the eldest, is believed to be suffering from pneumonia.

No one knows what difficulties await the freed men, who were bused and flown to the regional hospital in Copiapo after their release.

Their skin conditions and dental problems are relatively easy to fix, and for the most part they seem fit, if somewhat pale by Chilean standards. But the psychological scars of incarceration may be slower to heal.

There are signs that they are starting to get to grips with their newfound fame.

Speaking to a camera crew in a tented area up the hill from the Plan B rescue shaft, Sepulveda, the only miner to speak publicly during the first hours of the rescue, said: "I make a plea to the media to not treat us like artists or show-business figures. I would like you to show me how I am: a miner."

Asked for details of his experiences underground, he added: "I have learned a lot of wonderful lessons about taking the good path in life. For those of you able to call your wives or your husbands, do so.

"I think I had extraordinary luck. I was with God and with the Devil. And I reached out for God and he won."

- INDEPENDENT