Rescuers Close In on Trapped Chilean Miners

(Oct. 7) -- Drillers are only 90 yards from the 33 trapped Chilean miners, who have been stranded underground since a shaft collapsed 63 days ago.

"We expect to break through this Saturday," Chilean Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said in a televised news conference today. He said the team was digging at a rate of about 2 yards an hour.

"The fact that the T-130 drill reaches the miners, as will probably happen this weekend, does not mean that they will be immediately rescued," Chilean Health Minister Jaime Manalich told reporters.

Engineers said the process of pulling each man up to the surface could take some time, and they do not expect the miners to be freed from their underground galley until Sunday at the earliest.

"The deeper it gets, the more complicated things become," said Eugenio Eguiguren, international vice president of Geotec Boyles Bros., the company digging the rescue hole. But, he told reporters, "everything is going well. I think they'll be getting out this Sunday or Monday."

Once the operation reaches the galley, a metal cage will be used to lift the men through the shaft, one by one. But engineers said they will first test the stability of the rock, and they may decide to line the rescue shaft first to make the trip back to the surface as safe as possible.

"It makes sense to case the first 100 meters for safety reasons," Enes Zepeda, head of the supervisors' union at the state-owned mining company Codelco, told reporters. He said it would take about an hour and a half to lift each man out of the mine.

For weeks, the miners have been working to clear rock from their rescue shaft, but recently, they have been kept in the dark about how close the operation team is to the galley, so as not to get their hopes up in case the process is delayed.

In the meantime, the men are preparing for rescue with cardio and leg exercises designed for them by an expert trainer. Getting used to their new lives above ground, however, may take longer. The men, who are at the center of the longest mine rescue operation ever, are now world famous. And after being trapped since Aug. 5, they may emerge to find that their lives have dramatically changed.