World watches Chile's great escape

There were few words that Florencio Avalos could find to express the joy he felt when he finally reached the surface of the San Jose mine shortly after midnight local time.

Just a smile as wide as the Atacama Desert as he stepped out of the Phoenix escape capsule and fell into the arms of the wife and two children he had last hugged almost 70 days ago.

It was a magnificent sight to see, this remarkably healthy man breathing fresh air he must have thought he would never breathe again, and greeting the men who had brought him to the surface in one piece.

When the red, white and blue cage broke through the top of the escape shaft, the cheer that went up over Camp Hope might have been heard halfway to the moon.

A cloud of balloons filled the freezing Chilean night sky and church bells were rung in the camp and across the nation.

The joyous crowd, many of whom have been camped out at the surface as long as "Los 33" have been trapped underground, hugged one another, set up party poppers, and chanted the words they will surely be repeating for days: "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!"

As Avalos was stretchered into a field hospital, having completed one of the most remarkable feats of survival in human history, the 31-year-old truck driver, whose brother, Renan, remains trapped underground, sat up and flashed a thumbs-up at the cameras.

So began the meticulous process of raising the 33 miners who were buried a kilometre underground on August 6, located 17 long days later, after surviving on little more than starvation rations, and kept alive by supplies sent down tubes no wider than a man's fist.

One by one, the miners are rejoining their loved ones, watched by a proud nation and an overjoyed world.

And each time the Phoenix escape capsule completes another of its painstaking return journeys to the surface, there is a growing sense of certainty they will indeed pull off this greatest of escapes.

Avalos was soon joined by Mario Sepulveda. "I think I had extraordinary luck. ... I was with God and with the devil - and God took me," he said later.

The next to appear were Juan Illanes, Carlos Mamani, a Bolivian, and the youngest World watches Chile's great escape Jimmy Sanchez, 19.

They were transferred to the Regional Hospital in Copiapo, where doctors will keep them under observation for the next 48 hours, by which time they will hopefully have been joined by the rest of the 33 men whose solidarity helped them survive their underground ordeal.

The men behind the rescue, led by Laurence Golborne, the cucumber-cool Chilean Mining Minister, say they aren't out of the woods yet. The operation can't be called a success until all 33 are back at the surface, together with Manuel Gonzalez, who was lowered to their underground dungeon to oversee the rescue.

They will today have to raise the most fragile of the miners through the 600m escape shaft, a physically demanding task in the claustrophobic surroundings of a sealed space just 55cm wide.

Those men include Jose Ojeda, 46, who suffers from diabetes, Jorge Galleguillos, 56 who has hypertension, and Mario Gomez, who has silicosis and at 63 is the eldest of the group. The terrifying nature of the journey between ground-level and the mine tunnel became evident in the hours of testing before the rescue effort. As the empty Phoenix capsule was slotted into the narrow Plan B escape shaft for final testing, it became evident how little margin there was for error. It fitted, but only just.

Later, the crowd at Camp Hope watched on big screens as Gonzalez was fastened into the cage and transported to the men. Via a video feed - run on a 30-second time delay in case of disaster - they saw him arrive in the cavern. He smiled and walked out to applause and handshakes.

Gonzalez will remain underground until the last of "Los 33" is freed. That man seems likely to be Luis Urzua, the group's unofficial leader who co-ordinated work schedules and devised the rationing system which kept them alive in the long period before they were first located.

No one knows how these humble working men will cope with the pressures of instant fame, after emerging to find themselves at the centre of a story that has transfixed the world.

For now, even the most intransigent problems seem capable of being solved. Chile's President Sebastian Pinera held a Bolivian flag as he greeted Mamani. Mamani shouted "Gracias, Chile!". Their two countries have been at odds for decades. This was a night when anything seemed possible.Independent, AP