Trapped Chilean Miners Appear Upbeat in Video

(Aug. 27) -- Members of a 33-man Chilean mine team trapped in a half-mile-deep cavern are seen joking, singing the national anthem and thanking their rescuers in a new video.

"We know what you've all been doing for us," one man said, addressing the rescuers, according to CNN. "You haven't left us alone. We want to send applause to you." And with that, the men start clapping.

A five-minute excerpt from the video, which is believed to be 45 minutes long, was broadcast on Chilean television Thursday night, after the footage had first been shown to family members. The men made the video with a hand-held camera sent down a 2,300-foot emergency shaft that reached their refuge on Sunday.


The video shows the men in the 540-foot chamber they've called home following the collapse of the copper and gold mine's main access shaft on Aug. 5. All are stripped to the waist -- at one point a close-up of a thermometer shows the temperature at 85 degrees Fahrenheit -- and some have straggly beards.

The man holding the camera, its footage illuminated by the light on his mining helmet, gives a tour of the cramped space. "We've organized everything really well down here," said one bearded miner, pointing out a corner reserved for medical supplies. "This is where we entertain ourselves, where we have a meeting every day, where we make plans. This is where we pray." About a dozen other men are seen in the room, including some sitting around a table where a game of dominoes is under way.

And despite the grim conditions, there are flashes of humor. "Oh, you're sleeping on a box-spring bed," one miner jokes to another, who is resting on a pile of rocks. The video ends with the workers, arm-in-arm, singing the national anthem and chanting, "Long live Chile, and long live the miners!" according to The Associated Press.

Sadly, that upbeat mood isn't expected to last throughout the three months it will take rescuers to haul the men back to the surface. "Three or four of the men do have some problems. They're not sleeping at night, they're becoming increasingly anxious and irritable after being cramped in that confined space for so long," said Health Minister Jaime Manalich, according to The London Times. "We are preparing [antidepressant] drugs for them because it would be naive to think that they will be able to maintain this tremendous optimism for the whole period."

But at least one miner displays a key trait that psychiatrists say will help keep the men motivated and optimistic: a sense that they are, at least in part, in control of their future. "There are a large number of professionals who are going to help in the rescue efforts from down here," the worker told the camera, the AP reported.

Above ground, rescuers are expected to begin boring an escape tunnel Saturday, using a 40-ton drilling rig known as the Strata 950, according to the Bloomberg news agency. That machine can drill vertically to depths of almost 4,300 feet at a rate of 70 feet a day. The miners will then be hoisted out, although nine men have been told they have to lose weight in order to fit through the 26-inch diameter shaft, Agence France-Presse reported.

So far, the mining company that employed the men has played no role in the rescue effort. San Esteban Primera has claimed that it doesn't have enough money to pay for the drilling of the escape tunnel, which is being funded by the state-owned mining corporation, or even the salaries that will be owed to the men when they reach safety.

However, on Thursday a judge in the nearby city of Copiapo issued an order freezing nearly $2 million in corporate assets. "They said they did not have the money to pay salaries," Remberto Valdes Hueche, a lawyer representing several of the families, told The Guardian. "But we have been working hard to identify their assets and found they do have money."

On Thurdsay, one miner's family filed what is expected to be the first of many negligence lawsuits against San Esteban Primera. The Daily Telegraph reports that the company has a shoddy safety record: Three people have died at its mines over the past six years, and the company clocked up 42 fines from mining watchdogs.

San Esteban's owners have said it is too early to blame them for the accident. "Now is not the time to point fingers or ask for pardons," said Alejandro Bohn, joint owner of the mining company, according to The Daily Telegraph.