But the miners’ ordeal will not end soon. Rescuers say it could take four months — until around Christmas — to get them out.
The men already have been trapped underground longer than all but a few miners in recent history. Last year, three miners survived 25 days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China, and two miners in northeast China were rescued after 23 days in 1983. Few other rescues have taken more than two weeks.
For the moment, however, news that the men survived the Aug. 5 tunnel collapse outshines all other details.
“I’m happy, happy,’’ said one of miner Mario Gomez’s three daughters. “For the first time, I’ll be able to sleep peacefully.’’
Pinera told Cooperativa radio that he saw video of the miners from a camera sent through the probe.
“I saw eight or nine of them,’’ Pinera said. “They were waving their hands. They got close to the camera and we could see their eyes, their joy.’’
When rescuers early yesterday sent the probe, , one of eight drilled since the mine collapse, they heard hammering sounds and immediately turned optimistic.
Pinera traveled to the site after contact was made with the miners, who are in a shelter about the size of a small apartment.
“I thank the miners for their bravery, for their courage,’’ he said.
Word of the miners’ survival was a rush of good news in a country still rebuilding from a magnitude 8.8 earthquake in February and its resulting tsunami, which killed at least 521 people and left 200,000 homeless.
Mine officials and relatives of the workers had hoped the men had been able to reach the shelter when the tunnel collapsed at the San Jose gold and copper mine about 530 miles north of the capital, Santiago. But they had said air and food supplies would last only 48 hours.
Rescuers drilled repeatedly in an effort to reach the shelter but failed seven times; they blamed the errors on the mining company’s maps.
Yesterday crews sent down a probe, then pulled it up with two notes the trapped miners had placed inside, including the one Pinera read.
