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Chile's President Sebastian Pinera and the country's first lady have arrived at a remote mine hours ahead of an attempt to rescue the first of 33 miners trapped hundreds of metres below the surface. The president and his wife, Cecilia Morel, have been meeting families of the trapped miners, many of whom have held vigil at nearby "Camp Hope" since their loved ones were trapped by a collapse at the mine more than nine weeks ago. More than 600 metres underground, the 33 Chilean miners are preparing for the ride of their lives as rescuers prepare to bring them to...

After more than two months of being trapped underground, 33 Chilean miners seem to be hours away from being reached by a rescue drill. The country's Mining Minister, Laurence Golborne, announced on Friday that a rescue drill is approximately 130 feet away from where the miners are trapped and it should reach them in as little as 24 hours. However, once the drill reaches them, CNN reports that it could take a few more days until all of the miners are free. Health experts have been working with the miners, increasing their physical activity, in order to determine how well...

"A group of 33 miners from the San Jose mine in Copiapo, Chile who were trapped 2,257 feet underground after the mine collapsed on 6 August, are about to be rescued. Here's an infographic of their situation and the effort to save them." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/chile/7961923/Chilean-miners-trapped-in-San-Jose-mine-infographic.html

Astronaut Jerry Linenger and architect Eduardo Strauch know the remarkable quality that keeps the trapped Chilean miners going: the immense power of hope. Linenger and Strauch are living proof of survival amid isolation. They say that power is in us all. Thirteen years ago, Linenger was only a month into his four-month expedition on an aging Russian Mir space station when a near-deadly fire broke out. That was the beginning of harrowing experiences that included a near-crash and an oxygen system that kept breaking down. A return was months away. It was the space equivalent of what the miners may...

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Posted on Sun, Nov. 10, 2002 By Patrick Kerkstra Inquirer Staff Writer The Philadelphia Inquirer SOMERSET, Pa. - Even as they were hauled soaked and sooty from a flooded coal mine 240 feet under, the future was all but cast for the famously trapped, miraculously freed Quecreek Nine. There would be a book about their 77-hour near-death ordeal, of course, and a TV movie. Oprah's people would call, and People's people. Under the media gro-lights, this middle-of-nowhere town would turn for a moment into the center of the universe, a destination for busloads of tourists to come and gawk at...

July 29, 2002 9:00 a.m. From the tiny District of Columbia, with its even tinier percentage of conservatives and neoconservatives, it is my high privilege to nominate as the Conservative Capital of the World the small town of Somerset, Pa. The rolling hills near Somerset became the final resting place of the heroic passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight #93 on September 11, 2001. They also hosted the "miracle at the mine" during the night of July 27-28, 2002, when nine miners trapped in cold water 241 feet underground were by an amazing feat of conservative discipline, competence, professionalism,...

SOMERSET, Pa. –– Rescue workers on Sunday pulled all nine miners one by one from the watery, 240-foot-deep shaft where they had been trapped for three days, a jubilant reward for an effort fraught with one gut-wrenching setback after another. After three grim days of frantic drilling delayed by broken bits and busted seals, defiant crews – with no signs of life to encourage them since Thursday – bored a giant auger through the ceiling of 4-foot high chamber at 10:16 p.m. Saturday. The breakthrough allowed workers to drop a telephone line to the miners through a small air pipe....