COPIAPO, Chile, (Reuters) – The first of 33 trapped miners was pulled toward safety in a capsule barely wider than a man’s shoulders tonight, an emotional breakthrough as their two-month ordeal inside a Chilean mine neared its end.
Rescuers, relatives and friends cheered as 31-year-old father-of-two Florencio Avalos began his claustrophobic ascent of around 2,050 feet (625 meters) through thick rock.
Rescuer Manuel Gonzalez took 17 minutes to descend the near half-mile shaft and he was hugged by the waiting miners. He then took just minutes to buckle Avalos into the capsule and send him to the surface.
The men have spent 68 days in the hot, humid bowels of the gold and copper mine in Chile’s northern Atacama desert. For the first 17 days, they were all believed to be dead, and their record-breaking story of survival has captured the world’s attention.
Nervous wives, children, parents and friends waited on an arid, rocky hillside above the San Jose mine on Tuesday night as rescue teams started an evacuation expected to take up to 48 hours.
President Sebastian Pinera sang to the strums of a guitar played by Mining Minister Laurence Golborne around a campfire as relatives waited anxiously for their loved ones.
The specially-made steel cages are equipped with oxygen masks and escape hatches in case they get stuck.
Jessica Salgado’s nerves jangled as she waited for her husband Alex to emerge.
“The first thing I’m going to do is hug him hard, tell him how much I love him and how I’ve missed him all this time,” she said.
Rescuers on Monday successfully tested a capsule, dubbed “Phoenix” after the mythical bird that rose from the ashes, after reinforcing part of the narrow escape shaft with metal casing to prevent rocks falling and blocking the exit.
Engineers said the final stage of the rescue still has its risks but that the capsule is handling well in the shaft, and they expected a smooth extraction.
Each man’s journey to safety should take about 12 to 15 minutes. The capsule travels at about 3 feet/(1m) per second, or a casual walking pace, and can speed to 10 feet/(3m) per second if the miner being carried gets into trouble.
The miners will be able to communicate with rescue teams via an intercom in the capsule.
They will have their eyes closed and will be given dark glasses to avoid damaging their eyesight after spending so long in a dimly lit tunnel. They will then be under observation at a nearby hospital for two days.
Rescuers originally found the men, miraculously all alive, 17 days after the mine’s collapse with a bore hole the width of grapefruit. It then served as an umbilical cord used to pass hydration gels, water and food, as well as letters from their families and soccer videos to keep their spirits up.