Chilean Miners
Something I have been interesting in learning more about has been those Chilean miners that have been stuck underground for about two months. I remember my grandmother talking about it while watching the news a few weeks ago, but I’m not really one to watch the news, so I didn’t look more into the topic. Lately, the issue has caught my eye again. I know that many people feel it has taken too long for the miners to be rescued but at least the miners were able to be rescued last week.
The mining disaster was extremely drawn out. I personally don’t feel like there was any reason for the miners being down there so long with all of the available technology of today’s time. I can understand the miners being underground for maybe a week or two, but they were down there for sixty-nine days. That in my opinion is completely unnecessary However, I don’t know what obstacles were in the way in finding the best way to free them.
Because of my lack of information on the subject, I took a tour of the internet and found a few articles. One of this articles was from GobalPost.com titled: Poor Safety Standards Led to Chilean Mine Disaster. In the article, it shows that one of the miners had been to what was supposed to be their refuge. “‘It was supposed to be in conditions to shelter us, but when we got here, the energy was cut off and there was no ventilation,’ [miner Mario Sepulveda] said.”’ This is just sad. There certainly should be better standards than this to be better prepared for disasters as well as prevent them. This article really helped me understand different facts about the disaster. I at first, didn’t know that Chlie had poor standards and I can understand that that would cause such a problem. The mine had actually caved in on the miners and although there was an emergency ladder, the owners of the mine never bothered to to have the ladder reach the surface. This, I will never understand.
After a while, resources were sent down to the miners including food, water, light sources, and a small camera. The article states that they camera was used to film their experience down below as well as send greetings to their families.
I also read another article. This time the article was on Wikipedia and was titled 2010 Copiapó mining accident
This article gave me a lot of information is as well. For example, two of the thirty-three miners had to go into surgery immediately after being rescued. The mine was very humid and there was a concern of the oxygen in the mine. Also, the miners tried to have some kind of hygiene while underground. ‘"They know how to maintain their environment. They have a designated bathroom area, garbage area and are even recycling," said Dr Andre Llarena,’ This is good because it, in my opinion would be horrible if the miners had lost all hope and decided it was completely okay to let themselves wither away while in the mine.
All of this information makes me even happier that the miners were rescued when they were. Although, it would have been better for the group to be rescued earlier, it’s clear that the rescue of these men had to have a lot of thought behind it to make sure everyone was safe and properly taken care of.
