Book description
On 12 October 2010 the world's attention was fixed on a remote copper
mine in the Atacama desert in Chile. Final preparations were underway
for a daring rescue to bring to an end the longest underground
entrapment in human history.
69 days earlier, 33 men were midway through a routine shift, deep in
the San Jose mine. They stopped for lunch at the tiny safety shelter,
688 meters below the surface. Ten minutes later they heard an almighty
crack and a deep rumbling sound. Clouds of dust and debris poured down
on the choking men. The bombardment lasted for five hours. When it
finally cleared the men discovered they were trapped under tonnes of
collapsed rock.
17 days after the collapse, a drill finally reached them. They sent
a note back to the surface: 'We are well inside the shelter, the 33'.
Building on the exclusive access he was given by the rescue team,
and dozens of hours of interviews with the miners themselves, Jonathan
Franklin takes us deep into the collapsed mine with the men, and
behind the scenes of the rescue effort to bring them back to life.
For 17 days, hope slowly turned to desperation and then resignation
as the miners prepared themselves for a slow agonising death. When a
drill finally got through to the men, they still had over seven weeks
to wait until they were freed. What those men experienced in the
claustrophobic dark of the mine, how their families kept faith, and
the unprecedented scale of the rescue make this an unforgettable story
of how hope overcame fear,ingenuity triumphed over adversity and how
33 trapped men and the rescuers dedicated to saving them created a
miracle in the desert.
Jonathan Franklin
is an award-winning journalist who reported from the front line of the
Chilean mine disaster for the
Guardian,
the
Washington Post
and the
Sydney Morning Herald
. As the only print journalist with front row access to the rescue
efforts, he was allowed to attend planning meetings, private
conversations with the miners, and to have practically unlimited time
with the lead doctor and the lead psychologist. He was also the first
journalist to secure an interview with the leader of the miners, foreman
Luis Urzua. He has lived in Chile for 16 years.
