Chile drilling advances:
Shaft to reach miners next week
Chile: The crew drilling one of three shafts attempting to
reach 33 miners trapped deep underground in northern Chile is making
fast progress, officials said, and could reach the miners by early next
week.
The T-130 drill, part of an effort dubbed “Plan B,” burrowed 53
meters (173 feet) in 16 hours and is a mere 100 meters from a chamber
the trapped miners can access, said Andre Sougarret, the engineer in
charge of rescue operations.
The news raised hopes among relatives camped on the surface that the
trapped miners could be out by early next week.
Sougarret, however, was cautious about setting a time frame because
work was entering a delicate phase.
Drilling operations have been paused until midnight, and will resume
at a slower pace because it will be boring down a mere meter (yard) away
from a separate corridor inside the mine. If the corridor is breached it
could create problems for the rescue operation, Sougarret said.
“We are decreasing the drilling speed so that we get by the corridor
carefully,” said Sougarret.
“Once we have reached 535 meters (1,748 feet) of depth, we can resume
the rhythm that we have had up to now,” he told reporters outside the
mine.
The miners, who have been trapped underground for two months, will be
extracted one by one in a custom-built cage that has an outer diameter
of 23 inches (58 centimeters).
They will be wearing special sunglasses to protect their eyes when
they emerge into the daylight, after more than two months in
near-darkness.
“The benefit (of the glasses) is that they filter out the sunlight.
They do not cause any problems,” but do give eyes more time to adjust to
light, said Alejandro Pino, regional manager of the Chilean Safety
Association at the San Jose mine. Copiapo, AFP |