SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — Just six months ago, one of the largest earthquakes in a century tore Chile apart, physically ripping the ground, triggering a deadly tsunami and leaving in the wreckage a divided society and government trying to decide whom to blame.
Now, with Chile confronting a new disaster — 33 men trapped alive in a mine below the Atacama Desert since Aug. 5 — the nation is unified by the drama playing out in slow motion.
Sitting alone on a hill above the mine where his brother, Juan, is buried alive, Oscar Illanes, 51, fidgets with pebbles in his right hand and contemplates how his personal tragedy has also become that of his countrymen.
“This accident has crossed all borders,” he said. “Everyone in Chile, rich or poor, a mining family or not, is sending a positive force that sustains us. The will to survive started with the 33 miners alone under the ground. It soon became 150 as the families arrived here. Now it is an entire nation, all working with the same spirit to free the men.”
This time, Chileans are less interested in the blame game and more concentrated on getting the men out of the ground alive, even adopting the one can-do symbol from the quake that killed 500.
A tattered Chilean flag flies above Illanes’ head on the hill overlooking the mine and the makeshift camp where the families of those trapped await their return.
Once just a piece of cloth, it was transformed into a sacred symbol of Chilean resilience when a young man was photographed by The Associated Press pulling it from the wreckage of the Feb. 27 earthquake.
Many see the united effort and support for the miners as a way to move past the shameful episodes surrounding the quake and to demonstrate the better side of Chileans in the face of adversity.
There has been some finger pointing in the days since the miners were trapped — and it will certainly increase if they are not rescued.
The San Esteban mining company has taken the brunt of the criticism for lacking safety standards that could have prevented the event or allowed the miners to escape. President Sebastian Pinera fired top regulators and created a commission to investigate the accident.
But a positive energy floods the town of Copiapo near the mine.
“Those 33 men are the focus of every Chilean’s attention. We cannot fail to bring them out; that would be unthinkable,” said Luis Arancilia, 68, who sat in the main plaza reading the latest news of the accident. “All efforts, all energy must be focused on bringing them up.”
