Nasa team advises Chile on trapped miners

COPIAPO – Experts from America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) on Tuesday advised Chilean officials to be frank with 33 miners trapped deep underground about how long their rescue will take, as a giant dill slowly burrowed toward the desperate men.

Meanwhile, the owners of the Chilean mine begged for “forgiveness for the anguish” caused by the collapse of the San Jose gold and copper mine August 5, which sealed in the miners 700 metres under the earth.
“This is a terrible situation, and we hope that it will soon come to a happy end,” Alejandro Bohn, co-chief of the San Esteban mining group, told a parliamentary committee looking into the 26-day-old drama.
They denied any negligence on their part in implementing safety regulations at the San Jose mine, near Copiapo, and said all the mine’s inspection documents were in order prior to the August 5 cave-in.
Rescuers say it will take three to four months for a 30-ton hydraulic drill to chew through the rock to where the miners were holding out.
They have been told they are in for a long wait before they can be pulled out, but have not been given any date by Chilean officials concerned about their mental state.
The Nasa experts, experienced in getting astronauts through extended periods of isolation, told Chilean Health Minister Jaime Manalich and Mining Minister Laurence Golborne and other officials to avoid conveying “false hopes” to the trapped men.
Honesty was key, Nasa’s deputy chief medical officer James Duncan, explained to reporters in Santiago.
The miners’ experience and expectation that rescue would take a long time had to be taken into account, he said, drawing parallels with the training and professionalism of astronauts.
The Nasa team was to travel to the scene of the mine drama yesterday.
–Nampa-AP

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