Miners 'just want to get home'

Showered, clean-shaven and ready to walk the streets where they are now national heroes, the first of Chile's 33 rescued miners were preparing to be released from hospital today and return to the homes they last saw more than 70 days ago.

The men, who were reunited yesterday on the third floor of the Regional Hospital in Copiapo, are in remarkably good health. Several were due to be released today, said Dr Jorge Montes, a director of the team leading their treatment. "Some have some kind of minor complications, but nothing to worry about."

Earlier, "Los 33" were seen for the first time since the end of the 24-hour operation that saw them lifted one by one to freedom. Wearing dressing gowns, pyjamas, grey T-shirts, and dark glasses to protect their eyes, they posed for a joint photograph in their darkened ward with Chile's President, Sebastian Pinera.

On a day that saw them showered with offers of jobs, money, holidays, foreign trips, and (perhaps) a papal audience, Mr Pinera raised a more parochial prospect: a game of football, between the miners and the Chilean cabinet. "The winners will get La Mondea [the presidential palace] for the night," he joked. "The losers will go back down the mine!"

Before they get into training, the miners will first have to fully recover from the more than two months they spent trapped underneath the Atacama desert an hour's drive from the hospital. For some, it could take some time: though he looked in good health when he emerged from the Phoenix escape capsule, the eldest, 63-year-old Mario Gomez, is suffering from pneumonia.

Three other miners went under general anaesthetic yesterday for operations to fix dental problems that developed during their ordeal. The first 17 days before the men were located by rescuers were particularly damaging to their teeth; one of the first things they requested upon their discovery was a supply of toothbrushes.

Skin and eye ailments have affected the majority of the group, and a few have lung problems and breathing difficulties, but the last of them will nonetheless be released on Monday, predicted Chile's health minister, Jamie Manalich, who jollified the press conference where he made that announcement by singing several bars of the Mamas & the Papas hit "Monday, Monday".

In the longer term, the priority of doctors will be to ensure that the men - whose medical care is being funded by Chile's government for at least six months - can cope with any psychological trauma that might remain from their time underground.

The youngest, Jimmy Sanchez, who is 19 and has a four-month-old daughter, appears to be having a hard time adjusting to his return, and could be suffering from depression, said his doctor Guillermo Swett. "He spoke very little and didn't seem to connect."

Some of the other miners are said by a hospital spokesman to be showing "slightly worrying psychological signs," but he stressed that, given the severity of their ideal, they generally seem remarkably robust. "They have had to undergo two months of stress, but the majority seem to be dealing with this absolutely fine."

Chile is meanwhile recovering from a 48-hour party which began on Wednesday (NZ time) when Florencia Avalos became the first to be freed, and continued into Thursday, when Manuel Gonzalez became the last rescuer to leave the mine.

A huge crowd gathered at the town square in Copiapo, where a big screen had been erected to broadcast the final stage of the rescue, and where brass bands and local pop stars entertained revellers from a sound-stage surrounded by Chilean flags and banners proclaiming: "MisiU* cumplida" [mission complete].

When shift leader Luiz Urzua became the last of the 33 men to "clock off," as local newspapers have put it, the crowd blew vuvuzelas, waved red, white and blue flags and sang the national anthem. Cars honking their horns gridlocked the streets into the wee hours.

Capitalising on the public euphoria, President Pinera, a right-of-centre business mogul before he entered politics, declared: "We aren't the same that we were before the collapse. Today Chile is a country much more unified, stronger and much more respected and loved in the entire world."

He promised "radical" changes to regulation of the mining industry, along with tougher safety laws to improve how businesses treat their workers. The San Jose mine's design, which did not include an exit shaft to use in case of emergency, was in theory illegal.

"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," he said.

- INDEPENDENT