SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile’s 33 trapped miners have something good to think about: their next jobs. Bulldozer driver, mechanic, electrician. And here’s a couple they might find particularly useful: “risk-reduction specialist” and “escape-tunnel driller.”
Two dozen companies with operations in Chile have made more than 1,000 job offers to the trapped miners and their 317 sidelined co-workers at a job fair this week. Even if they choose to go back to mining, the work won’t necessarily be underground and it will almost certainly be with a company with a better safety record than their struggling current employer.
The 33 miners have been trapped for 40 days in harrowing, sweltering conditions since an Aug. 5 collapse. No miners in history have been trapped so long, and it still could be months before a hole large enough to get them out is completed. They are getting food, medicine, communication and other essentials through narrower holes dug by rescuers, but their anxiety has become evident, with more questions asked each time they hear the drilling stop.
Their relatives wait anxiously for the miners, many in tents at the mine itself, but in many ways life goes on without them. One of them, Ariel Ticona, became a father for the first time Tuesday.
The San Esteban mining company, which owns the mine, has pursued bankruptcy protection since the collapse and has claimed it can’t afford to pay the trapped miners, even though they’ll have to work their way out by clearing rubble around the clock below the escape tunnels.
The San Jose miners have been offered 1,188 jobs as of Tuesday, many of them posted on a government labor-ministry website. Mining-industry companies have interviewed about 200 of the miners who are not trapped at a hotel in the regional capital of Copiapo and say they have no trouble waiting for the trapped miners to be rescued before they interview them as well.
“The 33 won’t be without a job,” vowed Sara Morales, a deputy human-resources director for Terra Services, a Chilean drilling company.
None of the trapped miners should have to venture back into marginal mines like San Jose that struggle to meet Chile’s modern safety standards. Many of these job offers come from some of the world’s most advanced mining companies — major international players making huge investments in Chile.
Dozens of engineers are now working day and night to construct and maintain the three giant drills that the government has brought in to reach the miners. Two drills have been put into service, but one of them was out of commission for six days after breaking when it hit an iron bar. But that drill was working again Tuesday.
