The men, discovered alive 17 days after the mine collapse on August 5th, 2010, have been trapped for over two months. Food and medication was sent down to them through boreholes drilled into the ground.
Because of the hard ground, a larger hole, big enough to lower a rescue capsule, down took nearly two months to drill. The capsule, named Fenix (as in Phoenix, the mythical bird that rose from the ashes), is 54 centimetres in diameter, 4 metres tall and weighs 450 kilograms. It takes about half an hour to be lowered to where the miners are and the ride back up is about 16 minutes.
The photo here (which was incorrectly labeled on the site I got it from) is of Mario Sepulveda, 39, the second miner to be rescued. They said it was the first miner to come up, Florencio Avalos, 31.
The oldest miner trapped is Mario Gomez at 63-years of age. The youngest, Jimmy Sanchez, is 19-years-old. He was the fifth miner rescued. They decided to rescue the strongest miners first to make sure everything went well. Next will be the weaker ones, followed by the strongest again at the end.
In total the extraction of all the miners is supposed to take up to 48 hours. Our thoughts will be with you as the operation continues.
Yes, I'm happy to report that all the miners and the 6 rescuers were extracted safely from the collapsed mine. I'm very relieved about that. It's a joyous day.
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