Chile: the Mining Industry and It's Concerns

In August of 2010 33 miners located in Chile’s Atacama Desert descended down in to the San Jose Mine. It was not until 68 days later that all 33 miners made the trip back up to the surface via a rescue capsule. For the 33 Chilean miners this was an incident that could have been avoided if the right safety precautions were taken. On August 5th, 2010 a mine shaft caves in at a depth of 300 meters, trapping the 33 miners located inside. The mine is owned by a Chilean company called, Compania Minera San Esteban Primera. This mine along with many others in the region has been under a great amount of criticism since this accident. The exact mine in which encapsulated these 33 mean for 68 days had experienced a previous disaster in 2007. This event killed two people and was reopened relatively soon after the disaster occurred. (Yang 2010)

The collapse of the Chilean mine created a well needed awareness to the safety precautions that are necessary in this industry. It took officials almost two weeks to even devise a plan in order to try and contact those miners that were trapped. Through multiple rounds of emails in order to contact the correct companies, then followed by around the clock drilling, they finally broke through 13 days after the rock collapsed closing the mine. (Bodzin 2010)

Once they were able to reach the miners and establish that they were all still alive, the process of planning to actually rescue the men took place. Officials came up with 3 plans in case one of the dells through they would still be able to continue to move forward in order to try to retrieve the men as soon as possible. Once the plans were put in place action was occurring 24 hours a day with 2 full crews staffed at each of the individual plan sites. On October 9th, 2010 the rescue shaft breaks through where the miners were trapped.(Matibag 2010)

Days following the break through all 33 men were lifted out of mine and were immediately brought to the hospital for medical attention,...