Chocolate was a bigger threat than drugs

Jonathan Franklin had a front-row seat at the Chilean miners’ rescue operation, and his book gets inside the world of the 33 men trapped 688 metres underground

US-BORN Jonathan Franklin has been reporting from South America for 15 years, for a number of publications, including

The Guardian

, the

Washington Post

and the

Sydney Morning Herald

. His book,

The 33

, is the first to be published about the extraordinary rescue of 33 miners in Chile.

Franklin first heard about the August 5th explosion at the Atacama mine while at his home base in Santiago, Chile.

“I didn’t pay any attention to the story for the first few days,” he explains by phone from the US. “But it was quite a surprise when by day five we had still heard nothing. You do, unfortunately, expect miners to be found dead.”

Franklin went to the camp two days after it became known that all 33 miners were in fact alive and the rescue operation was firing ahead. The Discovery Channel network let him sleep inside their satellite van; this was considered luxurious accommodation in the remote area where some 2,000 reporters from around the world came to pitch their tents.

“I have to admit, I did not think they would get out. When you have a front-row seat, like I did, you see all the things that can go wrong. I think the outside world was tricked into thinking everything was going so smoothly.”

He doesn’t think the high number of people trapped had anything to do with the scale of the rescue.

“Chile has a national trauma because of the thousands of people who disappeared under Pinochet. Bodies are incredibly important. In Chile, even if only three people had been in the mine and then died, they would have found them. In Chile, because of the history, you have to give the body back to the families.”

Franklin managed to secure himself a “rescue team” credential on-site, which gave him access to planning meetings, personnel involved in the rescue, and to the miners themselves.

He interviewed some of them by phone, including foreman Luis Urzúa, by dialling 11 on a special phonelink while they were still underground. “I asked them how they were surviving, and he talked about humour and democracy, and how he had great men under his control.”

One of the revelations in Franklin’s book, The 33, is that many objects such as drugs, pills and marijuana were sent down the pipe nicknamed “la paloma” (the pigeon) by family members. He also reports that it was rumoured amphetamines were sent down. The authorities had tried to censor everything going down the pipe, for fear of creating volatile situations underground, thus endangering the safety of all, but they eventually gave up.

“I knew about this because I was at a planning meeting where they said they needed a sniffer dog to check what was going down. To be honest, the government were more worried about chocolate going down than marijuana: the most serious risk at that depth was dental disease. Some family members told me they thought it was inappropriate that other family members were sending down pills and alcohol. They didn’t all agree, by any means.”

Once the miners were located and the paloma started carrying down food and supplies, Franklin writes that “the medical team was working on another plan: how to appease the expected rise in sexual desires”. He quotes the team doctor as saying, “There was a guy who offered inflatable dolls for the guys but he only had 10. I said 33 or none.”

What’s the real story behind this? Given that the world was donating materials and labour to the rescue, it’s not credible that a further 23 plastic sex toys could not be found.

Franklin laughs. “The real story is that the miners’ wives went crazy,” he reveals. “They were very against the idea.”

And if you wondered why it was that each miner emerged from underground wearing a pair of Oakley sunglasses, attracting the company instant international attention, that was the personal work of Franklin. Seven years previously, he had met a rep from Oakley, and still had the business card. He sent an email asking for a donation of sunglasses. They arrived immediately.

Drugs, chocolate, sex toys The rescue according to Franklin

The 33 miners were trapped for 69 days 688 metres underground in the Atacama desert in Chile.

By the time they were rescued, the men were down to eating one spoonful of tunaevery two days, and their small intestines were shrivelling.

Among the objects smuggled down to the men by their families: marijuana, pills, chocolate, alcohol.

Objects requested and not received: blow-up dollsand condoms.

Having waited 17 days to be found, the men later threatened hunger strike if letters and packagesfrom their families continued to be censored.

The "live feed"broadcast to the world from the night of the rescue was not in fact continuously live. Repeat footage of earlier scenes was broadcast intermittently when problems temporarily arose with the rescue.

The miners spent part of their days underground signing hundreds of Chilean flagsand football club flags, which went on display before they were even rescued.

The famous "Los 33"note is now on display in the Chilean presidential palace.

Deep impact: a view from Irish miners

“Being miners, we were aware of some of the things that were happening to those guys in Chile. For instance, we knew what it would be like for them to hear the sound of drilling when [the rescuers] were trying to get through to them originally. You can hear the drill, but until the drill is quite close to you, you don’t know where it is. So we knew they were hearing the drilling, and that they were just hoping it was close to them.

“It was brilliant the way that foreman [Luis Urzúa] kept them motivated. The fact he’d only been working there for three months meant it was an even bigger challenge because he didn’t yet know his men; he didn’t know who were the strong characters in the group, and who might form sub-groups.

“We do regular emergency training sessions with the lads here, and after three or four hours they’d be getting restless, so you can only imagine what it’s like to keep people going for days and weeks.

“I hadn’t thought about cannibalism, but when groups of people are trapped, different things happen. People want to survive.”

Leo Sheridan is a foreman at Tara Mines, Co Meath, the largest zinc mine in Europe. He has worked there for 25 years.

“As a miner, any time you hear a story about miners being trapped anywhere in the world, you feel compassion for them.When you turn off your torch in the mine, it’s dark. There’s nothing. It’s just thick, black dark. Being down there 24/7 would have a tremendous effect on you. The time must have been horrendously long. I suppose the alcohol that was sent down to them would have helped with the tension. Having a few sessions must have helped them at night.”

Dick McGlew has worked for 32 years at Tara Mines and prepares explosives for blasting.

“We used have two shifts, 8am to 4pm and 4pm to midnight, with about 30 other people on the shift, like the Chileans. You’d have to walk in over two miles, so even though you could have come out to eat your lunch, once you came out, you’d hate to go back in again.

“I didn’t think those miners would get out alive, especially when they were trapped so deep underground.

“At one point, mining in Arigna was done by candlelight. For the last 10 years I was there, it was battery lamps on your helmets, like those Chilean miners. You had to charge them up every day, or you were on a dim bulb for your shift.

“The hardest thing would have been to stay sane. You could crack up easily down there in a mine.”

Leo Wyne worked for 16 years at Arigna Mine in Co Leitrim until the coal mines were closed. He now works at the Arigna Mining Experience, a museum that opened in 2003 where the guides are former miners.

“When I heard the news first, I thought it was better there were so many of them. If there were fewer, they mightn’t have gone to such efforts to rescue them.

“Miners are a resilient enough bunch, and they are a close, tight group. They are a fairly modest group of people. I don’t think any of us ever wanted to be heroes in Arigna; we just wanted to get on with life. So I’m surprised they all wanted to be heroes when they got out. I don’t see why a miner would want that attention.

“If it was me, I don’t know how I would have coped. In a way, it’s really too horrendous to think about.”

Michael Earley worked at Arigna Mine for nine years.

The 33: The Ultimate Account of the Chilean Miners’ Dramatic Rescue, by Jonathan Franklin, is published by Bantam Press