Chile miners rescued after 69 days underground

The rescue of 33 miners trapped some 700 meters underground in a copper mine in Chile came to an end Wednesday night when Luis Urzua, the last of the trapped miners, was lifted to the surface.

"All the rescued miners are in perfect health conditions," Andres Sougarret, the rescue chief, reported to President Sebastian Pinera.

People outside the mine exploded into cheers and applause.

Urzua and his fellow miners made history by surviving a mine collapse after being trapped for 69 days. No one in history had ever survived after being trapped deep underground for so long.

LAST MINER RESCUED

When Urzua was pulled to the surface, the rescuers and others waiting at the exit had been chanting "Let's go miners! Let's go miners! Tonight we are going to rescue you." Some of them were hugging each other.

Pinera greeted Urzua with a bear hug, and invited him to stand side by side with him among hundreds of others to sing the national anthem.

Praising the foreman as "a very good leader of the group," the president said, "We're going to thank everybody from the bottom of our heart."

Urzua thanked the rescuers and the public. "I expect this to never happen again in Chile ... thanks to the rescuers, thanks to everybody ... I am proud of being Chilean," he said.

69 DAYS UNDERGROUND

The miners had been trapped since Aug. 5 and were confirmed alive on Aug. 22. It had once been estimated that the rescue would take four months.

On Saturday, a 624-meter deep rescue tunnel was completed, allowing the final phase of the rescue operation to start Wednesday.

A miner of 31 years, Urzua studied topography and was the foreman at the time of the collapse.

Urzua became the leader of the miners when they were trapped. He made blueprints of the shelter and proposed moving the shelter to a less humid place. He also organized the food rationing.

He was the first among the miners to talk with President Pinera and Mining Minister Laurence Golborne.

"We have done what the whole world was waiting for," he told Pinera upon surfacing. "The hard fight in the 70 days was not in vain."