Salon.com > Frank Bajak

Miners do not disclose ordeal details

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:30:00 +0000

The first three rescued Chilean miners out of the hospital celebrated their new lives as national heroes Friday, as word emerged that the 33 want to closely guard their story so they can fairly divide the spoils of their overnight media stardom.

That could explain why none of them have spoken publicly at any length or provided any dramatic details of their 69 days trapped a half mile (1 kilometer) beneath the Atacama desert.

A daughter of Omar Reygadas, a 56-year-old electrician, said in an interview early Friday that he told her just hours earlier that the miners have agreed to divide all their earnings from interviews, media appearances, movies or books.

"He also said we can't say things to the media without their permission," said Ximena Alejandra Reygadas, 37. "He said they need to decide what we can tell the media."

Hundreds of reporters abandoned the mine and descended on this gritty provincial capital on Thursday after the world watched in awe the men's' nearly flawless rescue through a narrow hole it took a month to drill.

A shift foreman at the San Jose mine who is close to many of the men told The Associated Press they have hired an accountant to track their income from public appearances and equitably distribute it.

21 miners free; Chile rescue past halfway mark

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 19:11:00 +0000

The miners who spent 69 agonizing days deep under the Chilean earth were hoisted one by one to freedom Wednesday, their rescue moving with remarkable speed while their countrymen erupted in cheers and the world watched transfixed.

Beginning at midnight and sometimes as quickly as once every 30 minutes, the men climbed into a slender cage nearly a half-mile underground and made a smooth ascent into fresh air. By early afternoon, more than half the men -- 21 of 33 -- had been rescued.

In a meticulously planned operation, they were monitored by video on the way up for any sign of panic. They had oxygen masks, dark glasses to protect their eyes from unfamiliar daylight and sweaters for the jarring climate change, subterranean swelter to the chillier air above.

They emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven, and at least one, Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and thrust a fist upward like a prizefighter.

"I think I had extraordinary luck. I was with God and with the devil. And I reached out for God," he said as he awaited the air force helicopter ride to a nearby hospital where all the miners were to spend 48 hours under medical observation.

19 miners free; Chile rescue past halfway mark

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 18:37:00 +0000

Beginning at midnight and sometimes as quickly as once every 40 minutes, the men climbed into a slender cage nearly a half-mile underground and made a smooth ascent into fresh air. By early afternoon, more than half the men -- 19 of 33 -- had been rescued.

They emerged looking healthier than many had expected and even clean-shaven, and at least one, Mario Sepulveda, the second to taste freedom, bounded out and thrust a fist upward like a prizefighter.

Chile rejoices over mine rescue

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:50:00 +0000

The miners emerged like clockwork, jubilantly embracing wives, children and rescuers and looking remarkably composed Wednesday after languishing for 69 days in the depths of a mine that easily could have been their tomb.

The anxiety that had accompanied the final days of preparation melted away at 12:11 a.m. when the stoutest of the 33 miners, Florencio Avalos, emerged from the missile-like rescue capsule smiling broadly after his half-mile journey to the surface.

In a din of cheers, he hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son and wife and then President Sebastian Pinera, who has been deeply involved in an effort that had become a matter of national pride.

The most ebullient of the bunch came out second, an hour later.

"I think I had extraordinary luck. I was with God and with the devil. And I reached out for God," said Mario Sepulveda as he awaited the air force helicopter ride to a nearby hospital where all the miners were to spend 48 hours under medical observation.

Eleven men were pulled from the mine at a methodical pace in roughly the first nine and a half hours of the operation, putting the rescue on track to end before the sun rises Thursday, barring any major glitches.

U.S. expert: Chile “good and lucky” but risks remain

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 23:09:00 +0000

Chile has done a remarkable job of preparing to rescue 33 miners trapped a half-mile underground, but many risks remain simply because never before has anyone tried to rescue miners from such depths, a U.S. mine safety expert said Tuesday.

Davitt McAteer, who led the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration, laid out the risks in an Associated Press interview: A miner could get claustrophobic and do something that damages the capsule. Or a rock could fall and wedge it in the shaft. Or the cable could get hung up. Or the rig that pulls the cable could overheat.

"It's not an elevator shaft. It's got twists and turns and that can cause problems with the cable," McAteer told the AP by telephone. "We're talking about 2,000 feet (deep) and it's uncharted territory."

McAteer said he gave "very high marks" to the Chilean rescue team for creating lowered expectations by saying that it might take until Christmas to rescue the men -- and then consistently delivering rescue preparations ahead of time.

"Second, they have had very few technical problems. Their drilling rigs have performed extremely well," he said.

Ecuadorean leader calls protest a coup attempt

Fri, 01 Oct 2010 23:05:00 +0000

It was the biggest test to date of Rafael Correa's nearly 4-year-old presidency, a bloody trial by fire for a tenacious politician whose popular government had brought relative calm to a chronically unstable country.

The Ecuadorean leader called the police revolt, which left three dead, dozens injured and briefly paralyzed this Andean nation, a coup attempt. Not an outlandish claim for a country that had eight presidents in 10 years before Correa won office.

Correa's kindred leftist presidents, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia, even accused the United States of pulling the strings behind the insurrection at an emergency meeting of South American leaders on Friday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

But skeptical analysts said Thursday's tumult appeared instead to be a revolt that spiraled out of control by hundreds of modestly paid police officers protesting cuts in benefits.

"You can't dismiss the possibility that some opposition figures knew about it and supported it. But if it was a coup attempt, it was hugely amateurish," said Adam Isacson of the liberal Washington Office on Latin America think tank.

Joran van der Sloot in Peruvian prosecutors’ hands

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:32:00 +0000

Police moved Joran van der Sloot to a cell at the prosecutor's office on Thursday as officials prepared to file charges following what they called a remarkably complete confession in the beating and strangling death of a 21-year-old woman.

"We've practically closed the case," criminal police chief Gen. Cesar Guardia told The Associated Press.

Sheathed in a bulletproof vest, the young Dutchman was driven less than a mile across central Lima during rush hour in a police convoy.

Guardia said Van der Sloot, who also remains the lone suspect in the Natalee Holloway missing-teenager case, "confessed with a wealth of details that have been corroborated through criminal investigative rigor."

But he said Peruvian interrogators restricted their questioning to the case of Stephany Flores, the daughter of a circus promoter and former race car driver whom he met playing poker at a casino.

They did not question him about Holloway's disappearance -- exactly five years to the day before Flores was killed.

Guardia denied any suggestion that Van der Sloot's confession was forced. He said a translator assigned by the Dutch Embassy was present, as was a state-appointed defense attorney.

Chile was ready for quake, Haiti wasn’t

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 22:59:00 +0000

The earthquake in Chile was far stronger than the one that struck Haiti last month -- yet the death toll in this Caribbean nation is magnitudes higher.

The reasons are simple.

Chile is wealthier and infinitely better prepared, with strict building codes, robust emergency response and a long history of handling seismic catastrophes. No living Haitian had experienced a quake at home when the Jan. 12 disaster crumbled their poorly constructed buildings.

And Chile was relatively lucky this time.

Saturday's quake was centered offshore an estimated 21 miles (34 kilometers) underground in a relatively unpopulated area while Haiti's tectonic mayhem struck closer to the surface -- about 8 miles (13 kilometers) -- and right on the edge of Port-au-Prince.

"Earthquakes don't kill -- they don't create damage -- if there's nothing to damage," said Eric Calais, a Purdue University geophysicist studying the Haiti quake.

The U.S. Geological Survey says eight Haitian cities and towns -- including this capital of 3 million -- suffered "violent" to "extreme" shaking in last month's 7-magnitude quake, which Haiti's government estimates killed some 220,000 people and left about 1.2 homeless. Chile's death toll was in the hundreds.

Haiti judge to free some detained U.S. missionaries

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:59:00 +0000

A Haitian judge said some of the 10 U.S. missionaries arrested on charges of child kidnapping would be released Wednesday, nearly three weeks after they were caught trying to take a group of children out of the quake-stricken country.

Judge Bernard Saint-Vil would not specify how many people would be released, but said they would be allowed to return home without posting bail if they agreed to return to Haiti for any more questions in the pending investigation.

Saint-Vil, who had not yet issued a formal ruling, said he would await the prosecutor's opinion before announcing the names of those to be released.

"We expected that," said Gary Lissade, the attorney for American Jim Allen. It was unclear what would happen to any of the Americans the judge decides to hold.

Earlier Wednesday, one of the Americans, who is diabetic, was taken to a field hospital. Charisa Coulter of Boise, Idaho, briefly received treatment but was then taken back to jail. Neither her condition nor reason for the treatment was not immediately known.

And a lawyer for nine of the defendants, Aviol Fleurant, complained that Haitian police were restricting his visits to the Americans. "The lawyers are only being allowed in for three or five minutes," he said.