SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — The survival of 33 miners trapped a half-mile underground and the government’s unblinking effort to pull them out alive gave Chileans reason to be proud as they celebrated their nation’s bicentennial Saturday.
“These 33 miner-heroes, with their iron will, their spirit, their fight, their strength, are an example to all of us of what it means to be Chilean,” Interior Ministry official Cristian Barra said as a flag signed by the miners was raised next to the tent camp where families have held vigil. Another Chilean flag was signed by the families and sent down for the miners to unfurl.
The miners feasted on traditional Chilean meat pies — two each, baked in tubular form to fit through the narrow bore holes to their deep refuge. But they had make do with sodas because doctors vetoed their request for another national specialty: wine. Rescuers also sent down fuel to power machinery the miners will use to move tons of falling rock as their escape tunnels are widened.
Chile’s can-do ethos, evident in President Sebastian Pinera’s spare-no-expense approach to saving the miners, has brought the country to the threshold of the world’s club of developed nations, with the kind of stable economic growth that Americans and Europeans once took for granted.
But the mine disaster also is forcing Chileans to acknowledge aspects of their society long hidden from view. The miners’ faces — displayed across the pages of Chile’s leading newspapers — reflect lifetimes of scratching out livings in difficult conditions.
And Chilean pride about the rescue effort is balanced by frustration that the government hasn’t done more to provide for all of its people. Indeed, the miners, now stuck for 46 days, aren’t the only marginalized group whose survival has become a national concern during this bicentennial: 34 imprisoned Mapuche Indians are two months into a hunger strike, their latest tactic in a long and sometimes violent campaign to regain land and government resources.
