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COPIAPO, Chile : Three drilling machines will try to dig out 33 miners trapped for a month underground, the engineer in charge of the rescue operation said Friday, as work at the main shaft resumed.
"We've got three alternative plans: plan A is up and running, plan B... should be starting on Sunday, and plan C is in the works so that by September 18 a third option is up and running," said Andres Sougarret.
"For now, we've got those three alternatives, but we're still dealing with a three to four month timeframe for the rescue," he added.
Engineers Friday resumed drilling with the Australian-made Strata 950 excavator after a brief halt Thursday.
"The machine began working again at midnight. The delay had been programmed to allow cementing operations," a rescue worker who asked to remain anonymous told AFP.
Drilling had been halted Thursday afternoon once the crews reached 40 meters (130 feet) deep to cement the walls of the bore hole "to ensure no water can seep in through any cracks," the National Emergencies Office said.
The battle to reach the men trapped 700 meters (2,300 feet) underground since an August 5 collapse is a twofold challenge: drilling through the rock and managing the psychological effects of prolonged isolation deep underground.
A second drill that will widen a supply chute to the miners and could aid their rescue, arrived Friday dismantled atop five trucks at the site of the copper and gold mine in Chile's Atacama desert, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of Santiago.
"I feel so much emotion and I'm impatient to begin work as soon as possible," Juan Castillo Olea, who drove one of the trucks carrying the machine parts, told AFP.
The T-130 excavator is faster than the Strata 950 and will be deployed initially to enlarge the supply chute to a diameter of 30 centimeters (12 inches).
The process will allow teams of nutritionists, doctors and the miners' relatives to send larger objects down to the 33 men, according to Sougarret.
Engineers are also examining whether the supply chute could be enlarged further, giving rescuers a second potential rescue route, a back-up option, he said.
The third rescue option was confirmed Friday by President Sebastian Pinera.
"What's more, we've got a third plan, called plan C, consisting of an oil drilling machine that will require a platform the size of a football pitch and will be working before September 18 (Chile's Independence Day)," Pinera told a press conference in Santiago.
He said the state-run National Petroleos de Chile Company (ENAP) was supplying the machine that will get busy drilling a new rescue shaft in addition to the others.
Sougarret said plan C is the fastest of the three "if they had started at the same time." But since that did not happen, "we're keeping to the timeframe of three to four months."
"There's always a risk of new collapses," he warned. "We're talking about collapses in the shaft under construction," not in the shelter where the miners are huddled.
The Chilean Navy said it is building a special metal cage or capsule in which the miners, one by one, will make their hour-long ascent to the surface when the rescue tunnel is finished.
"The capsule must provide oxygen, communications, light, video link and a harness to secure the person to prevent him from using his legs while he is being pulled to the surface," top Navy commander Sergio Sandoval told 24 Horas television channel.
He said the capsule, which is being built at the Navy's shipyards, will include an escape hatch and safety device the rider can use to lower himself back to the starting point should the capsule get stuck along the way up.
Officials have been working to keep up the morale of the miners, trapped for 29 days now, amid warnings that it could take until Christmas to get them out.
The men have been told salvation is more than two months away, but not given a precise date.
NASA advisers at the mine presented a report Friday recommending that the miners be given vitamin D to compensate for the lack of sunlight during their ordeal.
"We (also) recommended to improve the lightning conditions so there's an ambiance of day/night," said Michael Duncan, a doctor at the US space agency's Houston Space Center in Texas.
"We are very impressed with the quality of the health being provided, the support being provided, to the miners, and to the families," Duncan told reporters.
"Let me say these miners have a tremendous will to survive."
- AFP /ls
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