Saturday, 28 Aug 2010
Miners in Chile smile and wave at a camera at 700 meters underground in a collapsed cooper mine where they have been trapped since August 5.

The 33 miners face a three month rescue mission and their only contact with the outside world is through six centimeter wide drill holes through which they receive food, water and medicine.

Chile is preparing a 40 tonne drilling machine called Strata 950 to bore through 700 meters of rock and free workers trapped in a collapsed copper mine.

Mr Enes Zepeda director of the supervisors’ union at Codelco Chile’s state owned copper company said that rescue workers aim to begin drilling on Aug 28th 2010 after anchoring the bore in about 40 cubic meters (1,400 cubic feet) of concrete which is aiding the rescue.

Mr Zepeda said that “This has never been done before anywhere in the world. We’ve been looking for documentation on this type of rescue and it simply doesn’t exist.”

Codelco transported the machine from its Andina mine, where it’s used to build ventilation shafts. The government estimates the tunnel at the San Jose mine will take three months to complete, making it the longest-ever mine rescue.

Rescuers will use the Strata 950 to drill a 25 inch diameter hole from the surface to the 33 trapped miners. That could prove challenging because Codelco is accustomed to using bore machines to drill up, not down.

(Sourced from Bloomberg)