Notes From Underground

By John Ballard

This post is about the trapped miners in Chile. With apologies to Dostoevsky that post title is begging to get used.
Kat, our researcher, furnishes a some news reports about this unlikely story, starting with a totally believable suggestion that like most industrial accidents, this one was preventable.

The government ordered the closure of the San Jose mine after deaths in 2006 and 2007, but a year later a junior official, allegedly exceeding his powers, authorised its reopening without the owners having installed a stairway in the ventilation passages. This stairway would have saved the 33 men this month. Instead, employees were sacked and non-unionised labour taken on. On 3 July this year a man lost his leg in a rockfall, and later in the month the Labour Department warned of serious safety deficiencies.

The neglect of such elementary safety precautions is the legacy of decades of anti-union activity by General Augusto Pinochet, whose Western-backed dictatorship between 1973 and 1990 did its best to crush the unions. Subsequent governments have failed to abolish his repressive legislation.

Recent decisions by the Chilean courts � which failed to take any action against the dictator after he was returned to Chile in 2000 by the former home secretary Jack Straw on charges of murder and torture � illustrate how the legal dice are loaded in favour of the rich and against the poor in Chile.

But the two mine owners, Alejandro Bohn � also the mine manager � and Marcelo Kemeny, may face criminal charges after they were questioned by prosecutors last week. A court has embargoed 900 million pesos (�1.2m) of company funds to meet possible claims arising from the disaster. This comes after the two had been hinting that they would seek bankruptcy, which would relieve them of their financial obligations to their workforce and other liabilities. Mr Bohn, who earlier said that he was "tremendously happy" that emergency plans seemed to have worked, said: "I believe this is not the moment to assume responsibilities."

Suspicion is growing that the mine was allowed to continue working only by dint of bribery. Chile, where vast fortunes have been made from mining, has only 16 mine inspectors to look after 4,500 mines. There have been 31 fatal mining accidents this year alone.

Neglect of the law is fostered by the keen interest of successive governments to make Chile � by far the world's largest copper producer � a mining giant, outstripping its neighbour Peru. The miners are paying the price.

Cost/benefit, risk/reward safety analyses take another hit. In the aftermath of this situation, the Gulf oil blowout, and the Massey mine accident someone in high places will factor in the dollar costs of wholesale public relations failures and toss a few more bucks in the direction of safety.

But I'm not optimistic.

This story from The Mail Online has photos, video and details of the miners' ordeal.

...today, as drilling begins on a rescue shaft that could take as long as three months to complete, The Mail on Sunday can reveal for the first time the miners vivid account of how the disaster unfolded and how agonisingly close the men were to escaping by ladder soon after the fateful collapse on August 5.

Further details have also emerged of how the miners are coping with the day-to-day realities of keeping clean, how they are using a natural spring as a toilet � and even how they are hoping to watch films on a home cinema system in their refuge 2,300ft underground.

More pictures, including thumbnail pictures of each trapped man, are at this link.

Farmer Wilson Avalos is selecting soccer videos for two of his nephews who are trapped down the mine.

"We will send them videos of Diego Armando Maradona, Ronaldinho and Pele, because they are huge soccer fans," Avalos said. "I'm sure that will really help them keep their spirits up."

The government is bringing in NASA experts for tips on how to help the miners, who have exchanged written notes with their relatives on the surface, cope with lengthy confinement.

Miners have been sent apple pure and sweet jelly after they survived two weeks on mouthfuls of tinned tuna, milk and cookies every 48 hours.

One of the first orders given to them was to dig a toilet. Mr Manalich said a clean area and a dirty area would be essential if they were to survive the next few months.

'We have to make sure the miners are physically and psychologically fit,' he said. 'If they lose their mental balance, it could create panic and violence down there, and that would be a huge catastrophe.

His message came as the survivors were warned not to put on weight amid fears they might get too fat to fit through the escape shaft.

Incredibly, the miners survived the 17 days before they were located by each eating two spoons of tuna, a few sips of milk and half a biscuit every 48 hours.

But with those starvation rations now over there are fears that the group will put on weight due a lack of exercise in the very confined space, Mr Manalich said.

It has also emerged yesterday that the owners of the mine failed to install an emergency ladder which would have allowed the men to escape.

Inspectors ordered bosses to build the ladder following a similar cave-in two years ago in which a man died.

But when the miners tried to reach the surface through a ventilation shaft marked on a map as an escape route, they discovered the ladder was not in place.

Mining minister Laurence Goldborne said he believed the workers would have got out within 48 hours of the cave-in if the ladder had been installed.

One of the trapped miners, shift foreman Luis Urzua, 54, told rescue workers: 'We attempted to get up through the air shaft, but as it didn�t have a ladder we aborted.'

��

Readers can furnish their own editorial commentary.  As in most cases like this one the facts speak for themselves. No rant from me will change what happened and as long as profitability is the metric against which safety is scaled we can expect similar events to happen in future.