33 Men (23 page)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16

Thirty-one men had been released from Copiapó by Saturday, October 16, but Sepúlveda and Zamora were still confined. Zamora had a badly infected tooth. At 10
am
, Sepúlveda was released, and he immediately headed to a rented apartment for a much delayed birthday celebration with his family. He had spent his fortieth birthday, on October 3, trapped underground. Now he was ready to celebrate with Katty and his children.

The hyperkinetic Sepúlveda sat little during the birthday meal. He bounded into a back room and, like a child discovering lost toys, began to open the sealed packages he had sent up from the mine. He hauled a crate of crudely wrapped tubes the size of baseball bats into the living room and jammed the blade of his pocketknife into the thick plastic of one of the packages. With desperation, he began to saw open the tube and then pulled out the contents: plastic bottles filled with minerals and crystals from inside the mine. “These are the remnants of the explosion, when we were first trapped and no one could hear us,” explained Sepúlveda. “This is a symbol of our hope and our attempts to escape. I only offer these to people who are important to me.”

Sepúlveda then began to pull out the letters he had received below. As he read them, his face changed. The smile disappeared. Tears rolled down his face. His choked up as he tried to explain the flashbacks and hard memories flooding his mind. Then he announced that he wanted to travel. Now. To the one place he dreamed about most during his confinement: the beach.

During the drive to the beach, Sepúlveda spoke like a man recently released from jail. Everything attracted his attention, from the sounds of traffic to the ease with which he could buy food, choose a soft drink and move freely. Sepúlveda said, “Now I value everything.” He picked up two empty plastic water bottles from the floor of the car. “Look at these; with these two you can make a shower. One to soap up and then you rinse with the other.”

The beach near Caldera was abandoned. The sun hid behind a bank of gray clouds. A warm breeze wafted from the ocean and flocks of seagulls hunted for scraps at the water's edge. Sepúlveda began to play soccer with his son. Then he stopped to appreciate the moment. “You know what I always dreamed of when I was trapped? This was my most precious dream, to bathe at the
beach!”

As he spoke, the sunlight cut through a hole in the clouds and angled shafts of golden light reflected on a patch of ocean. “That is the divine light, the light of hope,” said Sepúlveda. “When that first
paloma
came down to us, I pointed to the hole and told my companions, ‘That is the light and the door to hope. And above, my friends, is paradise.'

“I want the world to learn from us. To learn how to live. We all have our good and bad sides; we need to learn how to cultivate our good sides,” said Sepúlveda, who lived firsthand the fragility of life. “Your life can be over in two minutes. What good is all the money if you are not alive? No, look at me, I am happy. Two months without a penny and I am happy.” Pointing to the waves and sky, he said, “This is life.”

Sepúlveda flipped a soccer ball, ran on the beach with his son, chased seagulls and then pulled off his shirt, kicked off his shoes, dropped his shorts and, buck naked, arms outstretched, ran into the surf. As the waves lapped around his ankles his family applauded.

Mario Sepúlveda, the leader of Los 33, bathed and frolicked like a child.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17

In an effort to close the cycle of trauma and make peace with their experience, twelve of the miners went back to the San José mine four days after their rescue. A Thanksgiving mass was planned at the remnants of Camp Hope and religious, political and rescue leaders were gathered to finally put an end to the odyssey.

Under a tent guarded by police officers, the scene quickly degenerated into a screaming fight between the police and a group of workers from the San José mine who were not allowed to enter the religious service. Under the guidelines developed by the government, only Los 33 were invited to the service. Fellow workers from the San José mine were irate. They had suffered as well, many volunteering for weeks to help rescue their fellow miners. This was their work site; their sweat and suffering were now part of this mountainside and they felt they were being treated like interlopers. Shoving matches with policemen broke out. Protesters from the mine began to denounce the failure of the mine owners to pay back salaries.

Security guards also denied entry to representatives of the miners' union who arrived to both commemorate the successful rescue mission and protest the back wages owed workers. The mine owners were invisible as they presumably plotted a defense against the anticipated wave of lawsuits, a process likely to bury them in legal proceedings for years. Would they be sentenced to jail? Forced to pay huge time? The wheels of Chilean justice would take time to reveal the outcome.

“They want to pay us in installments over eleven months,” said Evelyn Olmos, a union spokeswoman as she criticized the owners of the San José mine. “We need the money now.”

“When nobody thought that our companions were alive, we all came here. All the workers—we knew they were alive and we brought our solidarity and faith,” complained Javier Castillo, a local union leader. “And now that they are alive and it is back to business as usual, they shut off the mass for a few of us. This is painful.”

Castillo had long fought for the mine to be closed. For nearly a decade he had watched as a seemingly endless series of accidents maimed and killed workers. The casualty list was as much a part of the mine, it seemed, as the steady stream of trucks hauling valuable gold and copper from the bowels of the mountain. As further details about the safety conditions in the mine came to light, a backlash built against the mine owners.

Manuel González, the first rescuer to descend in the capsule, was appalled by the conditions inside San José.

“It didn't even have basic elements,” he told TVN, the state television. “I was down there for twenty-five hours in temperatures of forty degrees Celsius [100 degrees Fahrenheit] . . . and there was almost one hundred percent humidity. I imagine those first seventeen days when they did not know anything . . . it must have been terrible.”

After attending the mass and waiting for the media to disperse a bit, Samuel Ávalos disguised himself and began exploring Camp Hope. It was a foreign world. In the months before the collapse, he had driven daily through this same area, past mounds of sterile rock. Now every corner was packed with cables, motor homes and signs of life. Ávalos was given permission to visit the shaft that had brought him to safety. “I found the hole very small,” he said. “I still can't explain how I came out of that hole. If you ask me? I can't understand—without a doubt it was a rebirth.”

Then he began insulting the mountain. “This was a mine that was vicious. When you insulted it, it would throw rocks at you; it was a living being. . . . So I pissed on that fucking mine and as I did I insulted it and called it names.” But even as he sought vengeance, Ávalos maintained a deep respect for the mine. “If the mine wants to kill me, it will, even if I am out here. It has a power.”

Another group of rescued miners left the mass and headed to the mouth of the mine. Standing outside, they stared in at the yawning mouth. Then they picked up a handful of rocks and, screaming insults, hurled the stones into the hole. For a moment, they had won; the mine had no answer.

It was a combination of fate and last-minute decisions that led the thirty-three miners to enter the San José mine on August 5, 2010.

Mario Sepúlveda missed the bus to work. He hitchhiked on a lonely road that fateful morning, arriving hours late. Samuel Ávalos was not even a miner. He sold pirated compact discs on the streets of a small Chilean city; a relative took him to San José for a new opportunity. Carlos Mamani did not even have a contract to work inside San José. He was moonlighting to make a little extra cash to support his newborn daughter, Emili.

Every time a new shift began at the San José mine, the men entered a world that was known to charge tribute, a mine known as a vengeful spirit that never hesitated to show its wrath by raining a shower of rocks upon the working men. Los 33 were not regular guys. They were victims even before the mine collapsed. It took a string of bad luck, hardened circumstances and blazing bravery to even consider working at the San José mine.

Among Los 33, accidents were part of the daily gamble. If a man could finish a twelve-hour shift without being crushed, he pocketed another $75. If he managed to survive a full week, he earned $525. With extra days and overtime, some of the men managed to make $2,000 a month. The San José mine paid roughly 30 percent more than mines of a similar size in the region, a practice not unlike military forces and diplomatic corps that allocate extra pay for working in a war
zone.

When the mountain collapsed on August 5, men should have been killed. At any other time of the day or night the massive cave-in would have crushed and forever buried at least some of the scattered crews inside the labyrinthine mine. But the mountain cracked at lunchtime—just as the men were retreating to the refuge for lunch, stowing their tools or preparing to ride the transport truck up to the blazing sun, fresh air and food. Once they were locked behind a wall of rock the size of a skyscraper, the miners had virtually no food and no way to escape. It was estimated that clearing the tunnel, digging through the rock would take a full year.

As they slowly starved to death for seventeen days, many of the miners cursed their luck—“If only . . .” “Had I just . . .” “Why me?”

The slow death gave them more than sufficient time to examine their lives, to take stock of their accomplishments, failures and families. The sum was not flattering. Many of the men had squandered their earnings on cheap thrills, leaving wives or girlfriends and children to fend for themselves. Others had succumbed to alcoholism and drug addiction. Generosity and altruism were not notable traits among the group.

The work routines inside San José were hardly conducive to introspection or self-improvement. Daily dangers were so prevalent that it was hardly surprising that after seven days of dodging danger the men would feel justified in blowing their salary on cheap booze, secret lovers and other equally disposable placebos.

Then a miracle happened. Instead of succumbing to animal instincts and the behavioral meltdown so embodied in the novel
Lord of the Flies
, the miners grasped the essence of the human spirit, and they never let go.

Instead of fighting over a can of tuna, they divided the meager contents into thimble-sized portions. A single can of peaches became a communal feast. Rather than let brute force rule, they instituted a daily meeting where key decisions were discussed, debated and then put to a vote. “Humor and democracy,” said Luis Urzúa when asked how he had helped guide the leadership during ten weeks underground. “We were thirty-three, so sixteen plus one was a majority.”

In the first hours after the accident, family members of the trapped men rushed to the scene, built shrines, and implored politicians never to give up as they deliberately turned their collective back on logic and probabilities. In their hearts they held fast to a distinct belief: of course the men were alive. The only doubt was how long their loved ones could keep fragile grasp of life.

For ten weeks, thirty-three men united and battled together. Buried 2,300 feet deep, inside a mountain, they built a communal spirit to survive. Even as their families rallied and rescuers launched multiple plans to save them, the Chilean government drew up funeral plans and a design for a white cross to adorn the hillside in their memory. Statistics provided to President Piñera suggested that there was only a 2 percent chance that
any
of the miners had survived.

Faith and technology were ultimately united to literally move a mountain. Increasingly the families, the miners, the rescue workers and the world media demonstrated the ability to work for the common good.

The final cost of the rescue was estimated to be in the range of $20 million—roughly $600,000 per miner. Not only was the final tally for the rescue rarely questioned, in many cases the bills never arrived. Mining companies including Precision Drilling, Minera Santa Fe, Center Rock, Anglo American, Geotec, Codelco, Collahuasi and dozens more simply paid out of their own pocket.

As the rescue effort labored on, donations poured in from Japan, Canada, Brazil, Germany, South Africa and the United States. United Parcel Service shipped 26,000 pounds of drilling equipment for free. Oakley sent a small box with thirty-five pairs of sunglasses. Teams of machinists at Center Rock Inc. in Pennsylvania worked overtime to design a new drill bit. For every trapped miner, an estimated thirty to fifty people worked full-time to assist in the rescue. At lunchtime, the mess hall at Camp Hope sounded like the United Nations—Korean journalists, Brazilian oil workers, NASA doctors, Chilean firefighters, Canadian roughnecks and, from Colorado, the towering Jeff Hart, the world's best driller.

When queried about the lessons of his entrapment, Samuel Ávalos, said, “We are as fragile as a second. In the least expected moment, it is all over. Live and enjoy the now. The instant. The moment. Don't make too many plans. Understand that your problems are so much smaller than what we lived. . . . Always have the capability to overcome, to help others.”

How did a ragtag band of desperate miners and their families become a showcase of tenderness and emotional intelligence? Few of these men were well educated, successful in their career or able to spend “quality time” with their families. They were hardened men, survivors who labored in anonymous corners of a dark cave where few other humans could last a single
shift.

Colleagues were killed. Colleagues were maimed. New recruits rushed to fill the open slots. For these workers—and they exist in every corner of the world—the concept of a just universe or meritocracy was as foreign as the procedures for boarding an airplane or applying for a passport. Yet they became an example to the world, a symbol of survival. A brief reminder that like evil, good exists. And a reminder that in an ever more connected world, a single event has the power to unite us.

When a group of zealots launched the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the world was instantly torn apart. For the worst of reasons, divisions suddenly overshadowed understanding. Racism. Tribalism. Us versus them and “shock and awe” erased a nascent global consciousness. Then the French newspaper
Le Monde
published the famous headline “We Are All Americans.” This was not a celebratory moment. Indeed it was a declaration of defeat, an admission that it was now time to confront the most brutal tactics with even more brute force. An era of terrorism and torture arrived. Guant
á
namo became a symbol of the new Dark Age.

The Chilean mine rescue was the Anti-9/11, an event that showcased human charity, brotherhood and the concept of a Global Village built on altruism. The world media fixation with the Chilean mining story was an aberration from the normal flow of war news, massacre updates and extreme weather. Was it a flash in the pan? Or was it a brief glimpse into the vast reservoir of goodwill that can always be summoned for a worldwide cause.

The global embrace of the Chilean miners had as much to do with the state of the planet as it did the fate of the trapped men. Every year, thousands of miners are trapped and die. Hundreds more are rescued. The world's press has no shortage of global good-news stories. Heroes abound if reporters and editors take the time to search. After nearly a decade of what analysts call “the Age of Terror,” by August 2010 the world seemed starved of hope, but the bravery of thirty-three men and a band of generous and tenacious rescue workers brought the world together. At least for a moment, we could say, “We are all Chilean.”