Figures provided by ACHS to the Chilean congress showed that the rate of accidents at the San José mine was 307 percent higher than the industry average. “The average company pays 1.65 percent of a worker’s salary for insurance; they paid 5.37 percent,” testified Martín Fruns of ACHS, who noted that the San José mine owners had not paid the workers’ insurance fund for five months.
In testimony before the committee, María Ester Feres, a former head of the government’s labor ministry, said she had tried to shut down the San José mine nearly a decade earlier, in 2001, but was rebuffed by what she described as “pressures from the mining sector” and concerns that those jobs would be lost. “There was some minor work done in the mine but the perception at the labor ministry was that this mine was a bomb . . . and it had no escape exits.”
The congressional investigation also exposed the fact that inside the San José mine a steady rain of rocks was constantly crushing workers. Some were minor accidents that required no hospitalizations. Others ended in funerals.
Mine owner Alejandro Bohn testified that safety improvements were a “sacred principle of our company.” Asked about the accident that sliced off the leg of worker Gino Cortés, Bohn blamed workers for not replacing a safety net designed to catch falling rocks from the ceiling. He then went on to say, “Unfortunately, it is the same shift that is now trapped inside the mine.”
Many observers were shocked by Bohn’s callous remarks. It sounded like blaming a lightning strike victim for not walking around in rubber-soled shoes. “The whole roof was without mesh—maybe twenty percent had mesh,” said Samuel Ávalos, who was indignant when he heard Bohn’s analysis. “Where were we supposed to walk? Where?”
Piñera’s newly minted secretary of labor, Camila Merino, admitted that the Piñera government had been aware of the dangerous work environment. “We had indications of safety problems and we should have acted with anticipation. That is why it is important that all the safety measures that we are now proposing are taken notice of, so that we don’t have more accidents in the future,” said Merino.
Her comments caused a furor in Chile. Opposition lawmakers demanded more details. Had the government covered up gross safety problems at San José? If so, could they keep the lid on the scandal? Merino backtracked, insisting she had no solid information.
Javier Castillo, a union leader in Copiapó who had battled with the mine owners and with the national mine inspection service known as Sernageomin for more than a decade, was ecstatic about the newfound interest in worker safety. In hundreds of documents filed with the courts, local politicians and mine owners, Castillo had warned that both San José and San Antonio were frighteningly dangerous and on the verge of collapse.
While the world wondered why the San José mine had collapsed, Castillo was determined to show that government oversight had also collapsed. A video made in 2002 by the miners’ union highlighted unsafe mine practices and the probability of a cave-in at both mines. In documents that he provided to the congressional investigators, Castillo showed that the owners of the San José mine had been warned that the mine was dangerously fragile. In 2003 the San Antonio mine—located on the same mountain as San José—experienced a massive collapse. Then in 2007, the San Antonio caved in again and was shuttered. There were no casualties only because the collapse happened at 1 am when there were no workers in the mine.
The abundant details about a series of fatal accidents that Castillo provided led government safety officials to shut down the San José mine for all of 2007 and part of 2008. Now the congressional investigation was focused on a central issue: Should the mine ever have been reopened?
Under Chilean law, the San José mine was required to have two separate exits: the regular daily route and a backup for emergencies. After investigating, the Chilean congress concluded that at the San José mine, there was never a backup exit, and even provisional requirements like stairs inside the ventilation shafts were never implemented.
In the weeks and months before the final collapse, the San José mine had given signals of instability. In June 2010, a block of rock fell, smashing Jorge Galleguillos in the back. An investigation by the ACHS, the workplace insurance company, warned of the risk of further collapse. Alejandro Pino of the ACHS said the mine owners had been advised about the imminent dangers. He said, “We asked the company to firm up the mine.”
DAY 59: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3
As the congressional investigation continued, the rescue drew ever closer. The hillside around the San José mine was crawling with construction crews building a helipad, a temporary hospital and bleachers for the journalists. The government was even designing lounges where family members could sit on smartly designed couches with flowers, neon blue lighting and stylish hallways. All for their first, brief visit with the rescued miners.
With the miners now media-trained and gleaming with the imprimatur of freshly minted celebrities, long-lost relatives began to arrive at Camp Hope. So many unknown “family members” arrived that when the Chilean newspaper The Clinic published a map of Camp Hope, it included an arrow pointing to a section entitled “Family Members” and a second arrow indicating the campground for “Supposed Family Members.”
Psychologists at Camp Hope scrambled to prepare the families for the unknown consequences of the trauma. Would the men be joyous or subdued? Would they proclaim everlasting love to their wives or seek imminent divorces? And in the case of Yonni Barrios, the de facto doctor below, would he stay with his longtime lover or his wife? Many of the miners were thought to be suffering from depression. What would the long-term effects of the unique trauma be?
After his month-long battle with the men, Iturra was now more of a concierge and cheerleader. He avoided fights with the men and instead became a diplomat, soothing family problems, delivering messages and repeating his mantra that they were “one day closer to rescue” as he sought to hold the miners together long enough to get them out.
Even as Iturra worried over the men’s fragile states of mind, Sougarret and his team were facing major obstacles.
A new round of technical setbacks stalled Plan A. As technicians rushed to change the hammers and head of the drill another three days were lost. Though Plan A was now less than 328 feet from the men, few engineers bet that the much-hyped original rescue plan would win the race. The slow but steady original drilling operation was now headed for third place. Both the other drills had proven faster in the unique conditions of the San José mine.
Plan C also faced a setback when an errant drill led the shaft far off track. Using a smaller drill bit, engineers devised a plan to curve the tunnel back on course, then return to drilling with the full-sized bit, which would bore a tunnel wide enough for the Phoenix. In total, nearly a week would be lost. But the speed of Plan C was now compromised by the inability to keep the massive rig on course.
All bets were now on Plan B, which by day 59 had reached 1,400 feet and appeared to be the most reliable technology in the epic operation. With Plan A and Plan C facing major challenges, President Piñera’s decision to operate three separate technologies now seemed utterly prescient.
ELEVEN
THE FINAL DAYS
DAY 62: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6
With the Plan B drill less than 160 feet away, the men could hear the grinding and pounding so close by it seemed that at any moment the drill would break through the roof of the workshop. Or was this another deception? Rumors flooded the tunnel: the drill would arrive in one day. Or eight.
For the miners, food suddenly became less important than their daily diet of information. “At a quarter to nine you would hear someone banging on a can. It sounded like a bell and they would be yelling, ‘News in ten minutes. News in ten minutes!’ We all came to watch,” said Samuel Ávalos.
The nightly 9 pm newscast was now the focal point of the day. In their underground studio, sweating profusely, stripped to white shorts and rubber-soled shoes, the men gathered to watch and listen to the latest
developments. The mine rescue blanketed the coverage; the first twenty minutes would be dedicated to Operation San Lorenzo, the mine rescue mission.
“Minute by minute we knew what was going on,” explained miner Samuel Ávalos. “We followed the rescue and started to calculate when the rescue would be over. We were too informed; that caused in each of us an anxiety of ‘Let’s get this over with. Get me out of here.’ . . . Without so much information we would not have known when we were supposed to be out.”
Rescue officials, including Sougarret, refused to provide the miners with a specific date. Golborne had ordered caution and Sougarret agreed. Many things could still go drastically wrong. In drilling the tunnel, the machines had occasionally drifted briefly off course and then been corrected and as a result the tunnel had slight curves and dips; would the capsule get stuck? One curve in particular near the bottom of the shaft worried the engineers. Rumors abounded at the command center that the Phoenix just barely fit along the curved section. Also, a small dynamite charge would have to be carefully calibrated to expand the spot where the Phoenix would enter the roof of the workshop. This, too, caused sleepless nights among the rescuers. If too much explosive was used, they risked collapsing the shaft in on itself. No one could predict how the walls of the tunnel would hold up to multiple scraping, sliding journeys of the Phoenix. On camera, the shaft appeared to be as solid as marble, but there was no way to know until the capsule was in operation. An earthquake was another terrifying possibility. Chile had been ground zero for two of the world’s five biggest earthquakes, including the February 2010 earthquake that was still a fresh memory.
And as the whole world now well knew, due to the chaotic removal of gold and copper, the entire hillside surrounding the San José mine was fragile, a hollowed-out skeleton, propped up by the remnants of the mountain. Geologists had been clear in their diagnosis: the mountain was fragile.
As part of the rescue, Codelco had studded the hillside with sensors capable of measuring the slightest geologic movements. If another collapse was coming, the engineers hoped to have at least a brief forewarning.
For the trapped men, the message was contradictory. The rescue was imminent but indefinite. “Nobody could sleep. We were all so nervous,” said Ávalos, describing the rising tension. “There was so much noise, the machinery going this way and that. Everyone was uneasy. Physically we were desperate. It was worse than the first days.”
One measure of the rising tension was the number of cigarettes being requested from below. Instead of nine smokers there were now eighteen. Instead of two to four cigarettes a day, the men were given practically unlimited access to tobacco. When tobacco became short and the men got to the bottom of their allotted stash, tensions shot up. Fights nearly broke out.
Prescription sedatives also were being sent below. For some men, the drugs were an aid to help them sleep. For others they were used to slow down the excess adrenaline rush. In a select few cases, the drugs were a drastic move to stop what was looking like the onset of mild psychosis. Though it was never publicly acknowledged, in private health meetings among doctors and paramedics, the mental health of the individual miners was described in terms that included bipolar, manic depressive and suicidal.
To stave off the rising anxiety, the men developed an ingenious form of recreation. The drilling operations were lubricated with a steady stream of water. Using a crude system of canals, the men engineered a path that channeled the water away from their living quarters and down to the lowest levels of the mine. At first, the collected water was a muddy slop that was practically useless as a bathing spot. More mud was smeared on the body than removed. However, as the rescue effort advanced and the canals improved, the bottom of the mine began to fill with water. Eventually the pool measured 23 feet by 10 feet and was over 3 feet deep. By early October, the men had nicknamed the growing pool La Playa (“The Beach”) and had enough water to swim and frolic. “I would swim laps,” said Mario Sepúlveda. “We had a great time.”
For hours the miners began to lounge in the pool, floating and laughing.
Pedro Cortés, an expert at driving the Manitou, a mining truck with an adjustable hydraulic platform, would drive the vehicle down to the pool, flip on the headlights and light up what became a surreal scene: a half dozen naked men, 2,300 feet below ground, carousing in a pool.
For brief moments the men could forget their tragedy. They told jokes, imagined a life of freedom above ground, and promised one another never to abandon their unique brotherhood. None of the men doubted they would sacrifice their life for another. Even the most strained relations had a core fraternal bond. “I could look into his eyes and know exactly what he was thinking; sometimes it was not even necessary to speak,” said Samuel Ávalos, describing his connection to Mario Sepúlveda.
The men had a loyalty forged on the sharp edge of starvation and death. They had been condemned to die together, not in a sharp instant but over the agonizing course of days. “At the time we did not talk about cannibalism as a group,” admitted Richard Villarroel. “Afterwards it was mentioned a lot in jokes.”
The jokes about eating one another were a barely disguised admission of how close they had come to a savage and barbaric end. The emergence of poets, promises and compulsive joggers can be seen as ferocious attempts by the miners to regain their humanity, to shove the somber shadow of barbarism and death to an ever greater distance.
DAY 63: THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7
During their two-month captivity, the miners accumulated a massive quantity of gifts, including photos of naked women, miniature Bibles, hundreds of letters, fresh clothing and the occasional smuggled chocolate.
Each man designed a crudely decorated sleeping area. The men attached mesh netting to the rocky wall and hung the Chilean flag, family photos, letters and drawings. “I had a special area with both the God and the Devil,” said Ávalos. “I had Luli [a busty blond Chilean pinup girl] with that great ass of hers and I had Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Those are my idols. Those were my inspirations.” As he looked around his makeshift “room,” Samuel Ávalos realized he was living like a pack rat. With no furniture or shelving, he hoarded his belongings on the rocky, damp floor of the tunnel.
Even at the depths of the mine, the trappings of celebrity were now apparent. Every other paloma now included flags and requests for all thirty-three men to sign and return them as soon as possible—flags from the Universidad Católica soccer club, the Cobresal soccer club, from Geotec (the drilling company) and, most of all, dozens and dozens of Chilean flags. The men obliged. Signing autographs and getting writer’s cramp at 2,300 feet was a brief foreshadowing of the media swarm and fame that awaited above. But in their innocence, many of the men were unable to understand the dimensions of the world’s fascination with their underground world.
With the drilling operation now on track, the men began to think about their move to the surface. What would they bring with them? What would they leave behind? Time—once their eternal enemy—was running out. It was now time to pack up.
As the days passed, the miners began to reverse the delivery system. Now it was a flood of items shooting up the paloma, a seemingly endless stream of paraphernalia including rock collections, diaries, flags and soccer jerseys signed by European stars, including the Spanish World Cup hero, striker David Villa, whose father and grandfather were miners.
At least twice a day, sometimes more frequently, Luis Urzúa was informed of the advances, setbacks and protocol for the rescue. The entire operation required massive and continual feedback from below. Sometimes the request was as simple as moving a camera to feed a live shot to rescue planners above. Other circumstances demanded that the men move heavy equipment into place to reinforce a weak roof, cut away loose rock or repair damaged communications equipment.
The miners began moving hundreds of empty water bottles, plastic wrap from food and wrecked equipment to a dump they created at the bottom of the mine. Muddy floors and swirling dust and dirt f
rom the machines made cleanliness impossible; still the men attempted to leave their living areas organized. “It is like going on a trip,” Sepúlveda joked to rescue workers. “You want to have the house all cleaned up before you leave.”
Part of their preparations also included managing their new fame. While Sepúlveda had been the perfect host for underground videos and good for group morale, the men began to speculate that once above ground, they would need someone with a different skill set—more serious, more grounded in legalese. “I was able to talk to Mario about the group feeling that he was trying to take over the show. I told him, ‘They are right. You need to back off. You are trying to take over. Maybe you don’t realize it. You are always, always in front of the camera,’ ” said Ávalos. “It was an open secret that they wanted to beat the shit out of him.”
On the last Friday, those concerns came to a head with a proposal to vote on a new spokesman. Was Mario really the right person for the new phase of media frenzy? Some of the men began to propose a more sedate, mature official voice. When that idea gained traction, a vote was called. Sepúlveda lost. The duty of official spokesman was handed to Juan Illanes, an erudite man filled with confidence, eloquence and a vague understanding of intellectual property and law. Sepúlveda took the decision like a slap to the face. To him it felt like a rejection of his leadership, an ungrateful snub. He immediately pulled back and began preparing for his journey into the media as a one-man show.
DAY 65: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 9
The rescue workers informed the men that the drill was now less than 33 feet from the tunnel. Sepúlveda sent a message up to the rescue team: “We are all going up the tunnel to watch the drill. When it comes through, we are going to dance and party all night. Tell them to stop sending down the palomas. No one will be there to receive them.”
33 Men Page 17
