Plucked from the bowels of the earth

A dramatic rescue that became a worldwide spectacle showed Chile and its president (embracing a miner below) at their best

Oct 14th 2010 | Santiago

 

 

 

JUST after midnight on October 13th Florencio Ávalos emerged from the narrow capsule that lifted him 620 metres (2,030 feet) from the hot, damp depths of the San José mine into the chilly night air of Chile’s Atacama Desert. With the rest of the 33 miners, trapped for more than two months, reaching the surface one by one over the following 22 hours, an impressive rescue operation came to an immaculately choreographed conclusion, watched by 2,000 journalists from around the world. “This is a moment that Chile and the rest of the world will never forget,” said the Chilean president, Sebastián Piñera. “Chilean engineers, rescuers and workers have shown what they are capable of.”

Mr Piñera took office in March, days after a severe earthquake devastated central and southern Chile. A conservative former businessman whose victory ended two decades of rule by a centre-left coalition, he prides himself on taking quick decisions and getting quick results. When the miners at San José, a small, old gold and copper mine, were trapped by a rockfall on August 5th the president was characteristically bold.

 

Mr Piñera was visiting Ecuador with his mining minister, Laurence Golborne, when the accident happened. He immediately sent Mr Golborne back to Chile and soon followed him to the mine, reportedly against the advice of aides loth to see his image tainted by the accident. Finding the mine’s owners overwhelmed by Chile’s worst mining accident in decades, he ordered his government to take charge and called in experts from Codelco, the big state-owned copper producer.

 

It was a risky move, but it paid off. Probes by Codelco’s engineers found the miners still alive 17 days after the rockfall. Codelco mobilised contractors and equipment from around the world to drill three separate rescue shafts. Some lay near at hand. The rig that drilled the successful shaft was supplied by a contractor at Collahuasi, a mine controlled by two multinationals, Anglo American and Xstrata.

The government also brought in Chile’s navy, whose submariners have experience working at great depths in confined spaces. The wire rescue capsules were made at the naval shipyard in Talcahuano, in southern Chile, and two navy paramedics were lowered to check the men’s health.

 

The government has not specified the cost of the rescue operation, though Codelco says its share has cost $15m (Collahuasi lent its equipment free of charge). Few Chileans will begrudge that. They appreciate Mr Piñera’s handling of the disaster. one poll found that it had boosted his approval rating by ten points, to 56%. Mr Golborne, a former manager at a retail company who spent weeks at the mine overseeing the operation, has become a national hero, prompting speculation that he may run for president in 2014. But that is a long way off. And whether Mr Piñera’s government remains popular will turn more on whether Chile’s economy can sustain its strong rebound from the earthquake (it appears to have grown at an annual rate of 7% in the third quarter).

 

The miners, one of whom is a Bolivian migrant, will doubtless enjoy their brief moment of international celebrity, with books and films already in the works. That may be lucrative, but it will also be stressful (already, secret mistresses have come forward). As for the San José mine, it is likely to close; its owners face lawsuits, and perhaps heavy fines.

 

There are lessons for Chile. Better supervision of a mine with a poor safety record might have prevented the accident. Small underground mines, many of them old, saw 23 of the 35 deaths from accidents in 2009, although they account for only a fifth of the industry’s workforce. According to one congressman, staffing at the National Geology and Mining Service, the industry regulator, has not increased much since it was founded in 1980, despite a fivefold increase in the output of copper in that period. Mr Piñera has set up a committee to review workplace safety.

 

Chile has long been a mining country. Miners working the harsh terrain of the Atacama are part of the national self-image in a country that thinks of itself as having snatched prosperity from adversity, whether earthquakes or mining accidents. But the rescue of the 33 miners has also struck another chord among Chileans—that their country “does things well”, as a government advertising campaign claims. Mr Piñera has promised to set Chile on the path to becoming a developed country by 2018, the bicentenary of the decisive battle in its struggle for independence from Spain. Over the past three months it has certainly behaved like one.

 

 

http://www.economist.com/node/17251964