Key figures: The 33 trapped miners (Los 33); Florencio Ávalos (first miner rescued); Sebastián Piñera (Chilean President); André Sougarret (rescue engineer)
Summary
On August 5, 2010, a cave-in at the San José copper-gold mine near Copiapó in northern Chile’s Atacama Desert trapped 33 miners approximately 700 meters (2,300 feet) underground and 5 kilometers from the mine entrance. Thirty-two of the miners were Chilean and one was Bolivian. One worker escaped the initial collapse.
For 17 days, the fate of the miners was unknown. On August 22, a drill probe reached a lower level of the mine and returned to the surface with a note written in red ink, reading “We are well in the Refuge — the 33.” The message confirmed that all 33 men had survived the initial accident and reached the mine’s emergency refuge area.
Chilean authorities and international partners mounted three simultaneous drilling operations to bore a rescue shaft wide enough to extract the men. Plan A used a Strata 950 raise boring machine; Plan B employed a Schramm T130XD drill; Plan C used a Rig-421. Plan B proved successful, breaking through to the miners’ workshop area on October 9, 2010.
The Chilean Navy designed a rescue capsule — designated Fénix 2 — with input from NASA. The capsule was 54 centimeters (21 inches) in diameter and equipped with retractable wheels, an oxygen supply, lighting, video and voice communications, and an escape hatch. It arrived at the mine site on September 25, 2010.
The extraction operation, named Operation San Lorenzo, began at 11:00 p.m. on October 12, 2010. Each miner was individually winched to the surface through the narrow borehole in the Fénix capsule, a journey of approximately 15 minutes per ascent. Florencio Ávalos was the first miner to reach the surface, arriving at 12:11 a.m. on October 13. The final miner, shift supervisor Luis Urzúa, was brought out last. All 33 miners were rescued alive over a period of approximately 24 hours. The entire operation was broadcast live worldwide, with an estimated 1 billion television viewers watching.
Life Underground: The 69-Day Ordeal
When the roof of the San José mine collapsed on August 5, the 33 miners retreated to the emergency refuge — a 50-square-meter (540-square-foot) shelter stocked with provisions intended for 24–48 hours of emergency use. For the first 17 days, they had no contact with the surface, no confirmation that anyone above knew they were alive, and no assurance that rescue was even being attempted. Rations were rationed to approximately two spoonfuls of tuna and half a glass of milk every 48 hours; miners lost an average of eight kilograms each during the ordeal.
Once contact was established on August 22, the miners’ situation improved dramatically but remained extraordinarily challenging. A 6.7-centimeter borehole was widened to 15 cm to serve as a supply conduit — the miners named it “la paloma” (the dove). Through it, rescuers began delivering food, water, medications, letters from family, and a miniature projector for film screenings. Medical teams on the surface, including NASA personnel familiar with long-duration isolation, prescribed structured routines: three alternating eight-hour shifts of work, recreation, and sleep designed to preserve physical and mental health in total artificial light with no clear day-night cycle. A psychologist from the Chilean government coordinated mental health support; some miners received treatment for pre-existing depression and anxiety that was exacerbated by the confinement.
NASA psychologist Albert Holland, who led the agency’s psychological support effort, noted parallels between the miners’ situation and that of long-duration space station crews: identical factors of isolation, confinement, monotony, and the need to maintain group cohesion across an extended period of uncertain duration. The miners organized a democratic leadership structure under shift foreman Luis Urzúa, which was credited as a major factor in maintaining group cohesion. One miner, Edison Peña, ran laps through the mine tunnels daily; he later completed the New York City Marathon in November 2010.
International Technical Collaboration
The rescue involved contributions from at least eight countries and multiple industrial sectors that had never previously cooperated on a mining emergency:
- United States: NASA provided capsule design expertise based on spaceflight and polar station medical protocols. Schramm, Inc., a Pennsylvania-based drilling company, supplied the T130XD rig that ultimately bored the successful rescue shaft. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided remote medical guidance.
- Canada: Precision Drilling Corporation provided the RIG-421 rig for the Plan C drilling effort.
- Australia: Australian drilling specialists contributed to the Plan A boring machine effort.
- South Africa: Mining safety experts with experience in deep gold-mine rescue protocols advised the Chilean team on underground atmosphere monitoring and communication systems.
- Austria: The capsule’s retractable wheel system was designed with input from Austrian engineers; the capsule was manufactured in Chile with internationally sourced components.
The Fénix 2 rescue capsule itself — designed by the Chilean Navy’s Directorate of Naval Projects — underwent multiple iterations before the version used on October 13. Initial designs were larger but were narrowed to 54 cm in diameter when drilling measurements confirmed the bore width; one miner, Mario Sepúlveda, had to lose weight during the ordeal to fit. The capsule was equipped with a self-contained oxygen supply for three hours, a retractable harness, compression socks to counteract the cardiovascular stress of the rapid ascent from 700 meters below the surface, and a simple communications device.
Significance
The Copiapó rescue was an unprecedented international survival and engineering story. It demonstrated the capacity of multinational technical cooperation — involving teams from the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa — to solve an extreme industrial emergency. NASA’s involvement highlighted the overlap between deep-mine survival and long-duration space mission medicine. The 69-day ordeal and successful rescue drew one of the largest simultaneous global television audiences of 2010 and generated sustained international coverage. The event prompted scrutiny of mine safety standards in Chile and across Latin America, and the miners’ story was subsequently adapted into books and a 2015 feature film, The 33.