More than a third of the trapped Chilean miners have now made the journey from their half-mile-deep dungeon to the surface, emerging to the joyous tears of their relatives and cries of "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le!" Edison Pena Villarroel, 34, was the 12th person rescued, coming up just over 10 hours after the rescue capsule dubbed "Phoenix" extracted the first miner. He is known as an Elvis fan who led the miners in singing and ran six miles a day in the cramped chamber to keep fit.
He was preceded by Jorge Galleguillos, 55, who has worked the length of Chile in various mines.
With the operation appearing to go like clockwork, the miners jubilantly embraced wives, children and rescuers, and looked remarkably composed despite languishing for 69 days in the depths of a mine that easily could have been their tomb. It is the longest anyone has ever been trapped underground and survived.
The anxiety that had accompanied the final days of preparation melted away at 12:11 a.m. Wednesday when the stoutest of the 33 miners, Florencio Avalos, 31, 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 Bairon and wife and then President Sebastian Pinera, who has been deeply involved in the rescue effort, which has become a matter of national pride.
It had not been planned for Avalos' family to join rescuers at the opening of the shaft, but young Bairon had other ideas and insisted on being there.
"I told Florencio that few times have I ever seen a son show so much love for his father," the Chilean president said. "This won't be over until all 33 are out. Hopefully the spirit of these miners will remain forever with us ... This country is capable of great things."
Avalos, second-in-command of the miners, was chosen to be first because he was in the best condition. He has been so shy that he volunteered to handle the camera rescuers sent down so he wouldn't have to appear on the videos that the miners sent up.
An hour later and the most ebullient of the bunch, Mario Sepulveda, 40, was out. He hugged his wife, Elvira, and then jubilantly handed souvenir rocks from his underground prison to laughing rescuers.
"I'm so happy!" Sepulveda yelled, grinning, punching his fist in the air and hugging everyone in sight.
Sepulveda later said he had spent the last 10 weeks "between God and the devil."
"They fought, God won," he added.
Like the wives on the surface who had their hair and nails done for the occasion, the men looked groomed and clean-shaven as they emerged despite spending more than two months deep beneath the surface.
A third Chilean miner, Juan Illanes, 52, followed after another hour. He called the trip to the surface a "cruise" and then jumped up and down as if to prove his strength.
The lone Bolivian, Carlos Mamani, 24, was pulled out fourth, and later met Bolivian President Evo Morales, NBC News reported.
Mamani was greeted by his wife, Veronica, with a hug and kiss that knocked off her white hardhat as Chile's president and first lady held small Bolivian flags. Mamani also gestured with both forefingers at the Chilean flag on his T-shirt and shouted "Gracias, Chile!" before a round of backslapping with rescuers.
Jimmy Sanchez, 19, hugged his father after reaching the surface. He was the fifth worker to leave the mine.
Through the first five rescues, the operation brought up a miner roughly every hour — holding to a schedule announced earlier to get all out in about 36 hours. Then, rescuers paused to lubricate the spring-loaded wheels that give the capsule a smooth ride through the hard-rock shaft before continuing the rescues.
Osman Araya, 30, emerged sixth and embraced his tearful wife, Angelica. The seventh miner, Jose Ojeda, who turned 47 on Monday, was rescued next and was met by his stepdaughter, Elisabeth. He made headlines for writing the message, "We are OK the 33 of us in the refuge."
In this screen grab taken from video, Mario Gomez, the ninth miner to be rescued, kneels in prayer shortly after his rescue at the San Jose Mine near Copiapo, Chile.
The eighth miner, Claudio Yanez, 34, emerged just as dawn was breaking at around 7 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET). He was followed by
Mario Gomez, 63, the oldest to be trapped underground and who suffers from silicosis, a lung disease common to miners.
He hugged his wife, Lilian Ramirez, who fears he will return to mining, even after this ordeal, and then dropped to his knees to pray with his yellow hard hat still perched on his head.
He was then checked into a field hospital erected at the mine, where he was visited by Pinera. "Thank you," Gomez said simply.
The first men rescued were the "young ones, the healthier ones that could handle the ascent," said Chile's health minister, Jaime Manalich. The next group of men being winched up the shaft, including Gomez, were in "more precarious health."
Alex Vega, 31, was the tenth to be rescued, and gave two thumbs-up as he came out of the capsule and embraced his wife. Then came Galleguillos, who was embraced and slapped on the back several times before he was taken to a stretcher, and Pena.
National crisis
When the last man surfaces, it promises to end a national crisis that began when 700,000 tons of rock collapsed Aug. 5, sealing the men in the lower reaches of the mine.
After the first capsule came out of the manhole-sized opening, Chile exploded in joy and relief at that first, breakthrough rescue just after midnight in the coastal Atacama desert.
In the capital, Santiago, a cacophony of motorists' horns sounded. In the nearby regional capital of Copiapo, from which 24 of the miners hail, the mayor canceled school so parents and children could "watch the rescue in the warmth of the home."
The operation began when mine rescue expert Manuel Gonzalez of the state copper company Codelco grinned and made the sign of the cross as he was lowered to the trapped men — apparently without incident.
He was followed by Roberto Rios, a paramedic with the Chilean navy's special forces, who helped prepare the miners for rescue.
"We made a promise to never surrender, and we kept it," Pinera said as he waited to greet the miners, whose endurance and unity captivated the world as Chile meticulously prepared their rescue.
Last one out
The last miner out has been decided: Shift foreman Luis Urzua, whose leadership was credited for helping the men endure 17 days with no outside contact after the collapse. The men made 48 hours' worth of rations last before rescuers reached them with a narrow borehole to send down more food.
Urzua's neighbors told the AP he probably insisted on being the last one up.
"He's a very good guy — he keeps everybody's spirits up and is so responsible — he's going to see this through to the end," said neighbor Angelica Vicencio, who has led a nightly vigil outside the Urzua home in Copiapo.
Janette Marin, sister-in-law of miner Dario Segovia, said the order of rescue didn't matter.
This won't be a success unless they all get out," she said, echoing the solidarity that the miners and people across Chile have expressed.
The paramedics can change the order of rescue based on a brief medical check once they're in the mine.
Chile has taken extensive precautions to ensure the miners' privacy, using a screen to block the top of the shaft from the more than 1,000 journalists at the scene.
The miners were ushered through a tunnel built of metal containers to an ambulance for a trip of several hundred yards to a triage station for a medical check. They will then be taken by helicopter to a hospital.
The only media allowed to record them coming out of the shaft will be a government photographer and Chile's state TV channel, whose live broadcast was delayed by 30 seconds or more to prevent the release of anything unexpected. Photographers and camera operators were on a platform more than 300 feet away.
The worst technical problem that could happen, rescue coordinator Andre Sougarett told The Associated Press, is that "a rock could fall," potentially jamming the capsule partly up the shaft.
Claustrophobia fears
Panic attacks are the rescuers' biggest concern. The miners will not be sedated — they need to be alert in case something goes wrong. If a miner must get out more quickly, rescuers will accelerate the capsule to a maximum 3 meters per second, Health Minister Jaime Manalich said.
The rescue is risky simply because no one else has ever tried to extract miners from such depths, said Davitt McAteer, who directed the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration in the Clinton administration. A miner could get claustrophobic and do something to damage the capsule. Or a falling rock could wedge it in the shaft. Or the cable could get hung up. Or the rig that pulls the cable could overheat.
"You can be good and you can be lucky. And they've been good and lucky," McAteer told the AP. "Knock on wood that this luck holds out for the next 33 hours."
Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, whose management of the crisis has made him a media star in Chile, said authorities had already thought of everything.
"There is no need to try to start guessing what could go wrong. We have done that job," Golborne said. "We have hundreds of different contingencies."
As for the miners, Manalich said, "It remains a paradox — they're actually much more relaxed than we are."
Rescuers finished reinforcing the top of the 2,041-foot escape shaft Monday, and the 13-foot capsule descended flawlessly in tests. The capsule — the biggest of three built by Chilean navy engineers — was named Phoenix for the mythical bird that rises from ashes. It is painted in the white, blue and red of the Chilean flag.
The miners were to be closely monitored from the moment they're strapped in the capsule. They were given a high-calorie liquid diet donated by NASA, designed to keep them from vomiting as the capsule rotates 10 to 12 times through curves in the 28-inch-diameter escape hole.
A video camera in the escape capsule watched for panic attacks. The miners have oxygen masks and two-way voice communication.
Their pulse, skin temperature and respiration rate are constantly measured through a monitor around their abdomens. To prevent blood clotting from the quick ascent, they took aspirin and wore compression socks.
The miners also had sweaters for the shift in climate from about 90 degrees underground to near freezing on the surface after nightfall.
Engineers inserted steel piping at the top of the shaft, which is angled 11 degrees off vertical before plunging like a waterfall. Drillers had to curve the shaft to pass through "virgin" rock, narrowly avoiding collapsed areas and underground open spaces in the overexploited mine, which had operated since 1885.
After medical checks and visits with family members selected by the miners, the men will be flown to the hospital in Copiapo, a 10-minute ride away. Two floors were prepared where the miners will receive physical and psychological exams and be kept under observation in a ward as dark as a movie theater.
Chilean air force Lt. Col. Aldo Carbone said helicopter pilots were issued night-vision goggles but won't fly unless it is clear of the thick Pacific Ocean fog that rolls in at night.
U.S. President Barack Obama praised rescuers, who include many Americans. "While that rescue is far from over and difficult work remains, we pray that by God's grace, the miners will be able to emerge safely and return to their families soon," he said.
Chile has promised that its care of the miners won't end for six months at least — not until they can be sure that each miner has readjusted.
Psychiatrists and other experts in surviving extreme situations predict their lives will be anything but normal.
Since Aug. 22, when a narrow bore hole broke through to their refuge and the miners stunned the world with a note, scrawled in red ink, disclosing their survival, their families have been exposed in ways they never imagined.
They had to describe their physical and mental health in detail with teams of doctors and psychologists. In some cases, when both wives and lovers claimed the same man, everyone involved had to face the consequences.
As trying as their underground ordeal has been, the miners now face challenges so bewildering that no amount of coaching can fully prepare them.
The world is intensely curious to hear their tale of survival. They have been invited to presidential palaces, take all-expenses-paid vacations and appear on countless TV shows.
Sepulveda appeared well aware of his budding options. His performance exiting from the shaft appeared to confirm what many Chileans thought when they saw his engaging performances in videos sent up from below — that he could have a future as a TV personality.
But he tried to quash the idea as he spoke to viewers of Chile's state television channel while sitting with his wife and children shortly after his rescue.
"The only thing I'll ask of you is that you don't treat me as an artist or a journalist, but as a miner," he said. "I was born a miner and I'll die a miner."
msnbcNews
