San José Mine (Chile):
They wept, they cheered, sirens blared and a bell at a makeshift schoolhouse rang in celebration.
Mounted polices patrol the surrounding area of the San Jose mine.
After nearly two months of waiting, the moment had finally arrived.
At 8:05 a.m. on Saturday, here in a camp in this scorching desert, a powerful drill pierced through abrasive volcanic rock to reach 33 miners trapped nearly a half a mile underground since August 5. Family members erupted into cheers. They ran downhill toward the site with flags, some singing the Chilean national anthem. A victorious call rang out: "Viva Chilean miners!"
It was a crucial moment in the long and torturous effort to rescue the men, who have been surviving on supplies lowered down to them more than 2,050 feet below the surface.
Reaching this stage required an extraordinary international effort and pioneering rescue techniques to plow through thousands of feet of rock while not compromising the miners' safety. Chilean officials brought in advisers from NASA, created a special rescue capsule and even fed the trapped miners cylindrical pies specially baked to fit down a narrow hole.
But the ordeal is far from over and even now, the miners' rescue is likely to be days away, with the actual extraction beginning late Monday at the earliest.
"The families are clear, the miners are clear what still needs to be done and the time it will take," Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said. "We still haven't rescued anyone."
The next phase of the rescue effort is expected to be the most dangerous part of the operation. The rescue shaft is only a little more than two feet wide, and and engineers must decide whether line its walls with steel pipes to prevent rocks from tumbling into the walls of the shaft and blocking the way.
One by one, the men will have to be raised in a rescue capsule, nicknamed the Phoenix, which engineers are concerned could snag along the walls of the shaft. The miners themselves, some weakened by the ordeal, might have to set off dynamite to widen the hole on their end so that the capsule has enough room.
Even so, it is going to be a tight fit. The rescue shaft is not even straight, instead undulating through thousands of feet of rocky walls with as little as a few inches of clearance around it. As each man is lifted one at a time, there are concerns that they could hit a snag and get wedged.
The miners have been keeping their weight under control so they can fit in the capsule, which is about 21 inches wide and built with suggestions from the NASA team.
But for now, for the bleary-eyed family members who had gathered at the site through the night, the breakthrough brought cheers.
"Long live Chile! Long live the miners!" shouted a group of women as they rushed up a hill to celebrate with other family members and try to get a closer look at the rescue hole in the distance.
Atop the rescue drill, operators of the T-130, which beat out two other machines working simultaneously to reach the miners, celebrated by pumping their fists in the air and spraying each other with champagne.
"This is a symbolic moment," said Ximena Matas, a local city councilwoman. "They families have been waiting a long time for this."
The gold and copper mine, near the northern city of Copiapó, caved in on Aug. 5 but it was not until 17 days later that the miners sent up a message telling rescuers they were still alive.
The miners themselves helped the drillers bore through the final few feet, said Claudio Soto, an employee of Schramm, the maker of the mobile drilling rig that was used in the effort.
Mr. Soto, who was at the rig when the drill broke through, said the miners were in radio contact with the chief driller, telling him when the tip of the drill first appeared. That way the driller could slow the machinery down, to avoid a sudden breakthrough of the entire drill, which would have put undue strain on the equipment.
"They were telling us how much more we had to go," he said. "In that way it was a very, very controlled operation."
Mr. Soto described the final few days of drilling as very intense, with the drill getting stuck several times. "The rock fought us back all the time," he said. "It was really difficult. There had to be very precise work from the drillers." The drill had to be removed from the hole twice, a process that took about 12 hours each time.
He said the last moments before the breakthrough were very tense. "The whole crew was standing and looking at the drill pipe," he said.
"When we hit total depth, everybody was jumping and screaming and hugging each other," he said. "We opened some bottles of Champagne -- not for drinking, just to celebrate."
He said the miners could be heard celebrating as well.
Mr. Soto said that during the periods when the drill was pulled from the hole, video cameras had been sent down to examine the walls. He described the bottom of the hole as very clean and solid.
But he said a decision had already been made to line at least the top 230 feet, of the shaft with 24-inch pipe, because there were noticeable fractures in the walls from the surface down to about 98 feet.
Mr. Golborne, the mining minister, who has become something of a national hero in the last six weeks, said the workers would spend the day removing bars and lowering a camera that will evaluate the integrity of the rescue hole. It was unclear whether more of the shaft would have to be lined before the men could be pulled out.
Many family members had said they preferred to wait the additional three to eight days it would take to case the hole than to risk the well-being of the miners.
More than 20 private companies worked on digging the three rescue holes, which were drilled simultaneously to give officials backup plans. In the end, a mobile T-130 rig made by Schramm pounded through the surface first. It used a special drill bit, made by Center Rock, a company in western Pennsylvania, with pneumatic hammers that pounded the hard rock to bits as the drill rotated.
After engineers evaluate the rescue hole and install casing, officials may ask the miners themselves to explode dynamite to open the rescue hole wider.
Throughout the long process, Chilean officials have worked to involve the trapped miners in their own rescue, duties intended to aid the work as well as the miners' psychological health. As the drills have descended, the miners have cleared away the cuttings.
Also still to be decided is in what order the miners will come out, although officials said Friday that the strongest would likely come out first -- so they can assist in rescuing the others -- followed by those in poorer health, and then the rest.
Once the rescue capsules start running, the ordeal of more than 60 days will end with a one-way trip of 11 to 12 minutes, officials said.