Trapped Chile Miner Rescue Could Start Wednesday

The rescue of 33 workers trapped in a Chilean mine for more than two months is likely to start on Wednesday, officials said after drillers made a dramatic breakthrough to reach the men.

The announcement came hours after engineers completed a 622-meter (2,040-foot) deep shaft all the way to through to the emergency shelter where the men have survived since the August 5 collapse at the gold and copper mine in northern Chile.

"We are setting the likely start date of the rescue around Wednesday," Mining Minister Laurence Golborne told reporters, adding that engineers needed time to stabilize the shaft through which the men will exit.

A day and a half would be needed to reinforce the exit shaft by encasing it with steel piping for about 96 meters (yards), work that would begin overnight Saturday into Sunday, Golborne said.

After that, an additional 48 hours would be needed to install the metal cage and the complex pulley system for lowering it to the miners and lifting them out one by one.

The first group of miners to exit will be several of the strongest men, following by a group considered the weakest due to chronic health problems like high blood pressure or lung ailments, and ending with another group of the stronger ones, officials said.

If the rescue starts on Wednesday, all the miners could expect to be out and reunited with loved ones by Friday, after an ordeal that has lasted nearly two and a half months.

They have been trapped deep beneath the desert floor after a partial collapse that blocked the mine exit, surviving longer than anyone has before under similar circumstances.

For weeks the men were feared dead.

But then on August 22 a spectacular development shocked the world: they were able to send up a note attached to a drill bit that proclaimed they had all survived in an emergency shelter and were awaiting rescue.

Golborne, who remarked on the unusual match between the number of miners and the 33 days that the drilling of the shaft took, also said the men have completed a risky operation to enlarge the shaft at its base by setting off explosives inside their emergency shelter.

Meanwhile, family members expressed cautious optimism that the miners would get out safely.

"May they take every precautionary measure they need to, because we don't want anything to go wrong at the last moment," said Nelly Bugueno, mother of miner Victor Zamora.

The miners are expected to be allowed a brief reunion with family members at the surface before being whisked to a nearby hospital for medical tests and treatment.

It is expected to take between 1.5 and two hours to lift each man through the shaft, extending the rescue operation over about two days.

The drill crew announced the breakthrough earlier Saturday -- on the 66th day of the miners' confinement -- by blasting an air horn, then jumping and embracing each other in joy.

They were joined by the hundreds of relatives of the miners staying next to the mine at Camp Hope, who erupted in cheers and vivas, sounded sirens and hugged each other.

Amid initial estimates that the miners could be brought up as early as Tuesday, Golborne said, however, there was still much work to be done and "precautions to take."

He said the miners "are very relaxed, more relaxed than the press."

"They are doing very well, they are very pleased," their doctor, Jean Romagnoli, told AFP. "They are in very good physical shape and in good spirits, which always helps."

Relatives on the surface were giddy, laughing then breaking down in tears.

"This is overwhelming -- I can only imagine what my brother must be feeling down there," Gaston Henriquez, the brother of one of the miners, told AFP as he choked on tears.

"We are very happy, because for the past two months we have suffered enormously. We'll now wait for them to emerge so we can hug them and bring them home," said Wilson Avalos, who has two brothers in the mine.

Several enthusiastic people in Camp Hope ran up a hill near the mine and raised 32 Chilean flags and a Bolivian flag, representing the nationalities of the trapped miners.

Journalists and camera crews from around the world have converged on the mine, hoping to capture the first images of the miners emerging. More than 1,000 reporters were expected by the weekend.