Miners’ rescue efforts show progress in Chile

Copiapo (Chile), Sep 8 (IANS/EFE) The Schramm T-130 drill, Chile’s Plan B for rescuing the 33 miners trapped underground since Aug 5, reached an excavation depth of 113 metres just two days after it started digging, officials said.

Miguel Fort, coordinator of the rescue work, said Tuesday that the machine “surpassed the depth reached by the Strata 950″, the drill that last week began boring in the San Jose mine and that this Monday had gone 100 metres deep.

Fort said the progress of the second machine “is something that was programmed”, since it “is working on a bore hole done previously” by one of the drills to communicate with the miners trapped some 700 metres beneath the surface.

The Schramm T-130 is an air-assist, reverse-circulation drill, which means that the loose rock and water that it gives off during excavation rise to the surface instead of dropping down the bore hole to the mineshaft where the workers are waiting.

At the same time, the authorities continue working on the installation of a platform for the third machine to activate Plan C with the participation of a machine used to drill oil wells.

A total of 42 trucks are driving to the San Jose mine from Iquique with the parts that will be assembled to form the giant 45-metre-high drill.

The convoy is scheduled to arrive at the mine Wednesday and begin working within another 10 days.

This third alternative is, a priori, the fastest of those that will be operating in the mine, since it can drill up to 40 metres a day and reach the miners in two or three months.

Deep in the mine, the 33 workers are receiving, by means of capsules known as “doves”, food with a nutritional value in excess of 2,400 calories a day.

Emergency services personnel said one of the miners is showing “tension problems” unrelated to the kind of depression brought on by being enclosed, so that doctors working with the rescue efforts deduce that it is a “pre-existing problem that is now manifesting itself”.

–IANS/EFE