The crew drilling one of three shafts attempting to reach 33 miners trapped deep underground in northern Chile is making fast progress and could reach the miners by early next week, officials said.
The T-130 drill, part of an effort dubbed “Plan B,” burrowed 53m in 16 hours and is a mere 100m from a chamber the trapped miners can access, said Andre Sougarret, the engineer in charge of rescue operations.
The news raised hopes among relatives camped on the surface that the trapped miners could be out by early next week.
Sougarret, however, was cautious about setting a time frame because work was entering a delicate phase.
Drilling operations were paused until early yesterday morning and resumed at a slower pace because it will be boring down a mere meter away from a separate corridor inside the mine. If the corridor is breached it could create problems for the rescue operation, Sougarret said.
“We are decreasing the drilling speed so that we get by the corridor carefully,” Sougarret said.
“Once we have reached 535m of depth, we can resume the rhythm that we have had up to now,” he told reporters outside the mine.
The miners, who have been trapped underground for two months, will be extracted one by one in a custom-built cage that has an outer diameter of 58cm.
They will be wearing special sunglasses to protect their eyes when they emerge into the daylight, after more than two months in near-darkness.
“The benefit [of the glasses] is that they filter out the sunlight. They do not cause any problems,” but do give eyes more time to adjust to light, said Alejandro Pino, regional manager of the Chilean Safety Association at the San Jose mine.
The special glasses were donated by a US company and have a market price of US$450 a pair.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese