680News staff & the Associated Press
Posted October 5, 2010 10:17 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile – Chile’s president has announced that it will not be long before 33 trapped miners are rescued.
Sebastian Pinera said he hopes to travel to the mine before his scheduled trip to Europe, so he can be there in person to see the rescue.
Immediately after they were found alive on August 22, Pinera told the miners that they would be out by Christmas.
Meanwhile, his government assembled a team of hundreds to support the trapped men, while three drilling operations pounded escape shafts through rock nearly a kilometre deep.
The drilling has been successful enough to move up the date, but rescue leaders have remained on the cautious side, estimating a late-October rescue.
Pinera has now set a new date, before he is expected to leave on his Europe trip.
The miners are continuing to be optimistic about the rescue mission, as they have been sending keepsakes up in the same capsules that have carried food, clean clothes, medicines and other supplies down through a narrow borehole into their underground cavern.
