SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — They’ll come up one by one in green overalls bearing their names on their chests — first the fittest, then the weakest, twisting in a steel cage that proved itself with four flawless test runs deep into the earth.
The dramatic endgame hastened Monday for the 33 Chilean miners who have braved two months underground, with rescuers reinforcing the escape shaft and the 13-foot-tall rescue chamber sliding, as planned, nearly all the way to the trapped men.
“It didn’t even raise any dust,” Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said.
If all goes well, everything will be in place late today to begin pulling the men out, officials said. The lead psychologist for the rescue team recommended the extractions begin at dawn Wednesday.
On Monday, the Phoenix I capsule made its first test run after the top 180 feet of the shaft was encased in tubing, the rescue leader said.
Then the empty capsule was winched 2,000 feet, just 40 feet short of the shaft system that has been the miners’ refuge since an Aug. 5 collapse.
“We didn’t send it (all the way) down because we could risk that someone will jump in,” a grinning Golborne told reporters.
Officials have drawn up a secret list of which miners should come out first, but the order could change after paramedics and a mining expert first descend in the capsule to evaluate the men and oversee the journey upward.
First out will be the four fittest of frame and mind, said health minister Jaime Manalich. Should glitches occur, these men will be best prepared to ride them out and tell their comrades what to expect.
Next will be the 10 who are weakest or ill. One miner suffers from hypertension. Another is a diabetic, and others have dental and respiratory infections or skin lesions from the mine’s oppressive humidity.
The last out is expected to be Luiz Urzua, who was shift chief when the men became entombed, several family members of miners told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because they did not want to upset government officials.
The men will take a twisting, 20-minute ride for 2,041 feet up to the surface. It should take about an hour for the rescue capsule to make a round trip, Rene Aguilar, the deputy rescue chief, told The Associated Press.
Golborne said all would be ready by 12:01 a.m. Wednesday. Officials wanted to make that sure the concrete around the steel tubing at the top of the shaft had set, he said.
Plans called for the media to be blocked by a screen from viewing the miners when they reach the surface. After being extracted, the miners will be ushered through inflatable tunnels, like the ones used in sports stadiums, to ambulances that will take them to a triage station.
Once cleared by doctors there, they are to be taken to another area where they’ll be reunited with one to three family members chosen by each miner.
After the reunion, the miner will be driven to a heliport for the flight to a hospital in the nearby city of Copiapo.
