Aussie driller helps rescue Chile miners

Drills are seen outside the San Jose collapsed mine in Copiapo, Chile. Photo / AP

PERTH - An Australian drilling consultant helping to reach 33 miners trapped underground in Chile has described the moment surprised and ecstatic rescuers learned they were alive.

Kelvin Brown, of Perth-based Reflex Instruments, flew to Chile last week to help direct a drill to a refuge chamber nearly 700 metres down at the San Jose mine in northern Chile.

Mr Brown, an expert in digital downhole surveying instruments, said he had been called back on site on Sunday when a drill bit came up from the refuge chamber with notes from the trapped miners stuck onto it.

"That was absolutely amazing," he told ABC Radio from Chile.

A drill had intersected the refuge chamber where the miners have now been trapped for 19 days.

"They left the drill bit and the rod where they were and they would have been protruding into this refuge chamber, just next to it," Mr Brown said.

"The guys underground quickly got pen and paper and hurriedly wrote several notes and they used insulation tape and they taped it onto ... they call it a hammer, that was raised to the surface," Mr Brown said.

"They were very ecstatic and no one was expecting it."

Mr Brown said it could take a long time to get the miners out.

"A very large diameter hole will have to be drilled from the surface some 688 metres to where the refuge chamber is and this could take several months."

The miners have been trapped since August 5 in the mine near the city of Copiapo, about 800km north of the capital Santiago.

A narrow tube is being used to pass the men food, water and medical supplies.

Engineers will drill two shafts, one for ventilation and communication and a larger one to eventually get the miners out.

Radio contact was made with the miners on Monday and a camera sent down the hole showed them shirtless and sweating but otherwise well.

The Chilean government says the privately-owned gold and copper mine has had several mishaps, with 16 workers killed there in recent years.

- AAP