Chile: Trapped miners found alive

In what has been described as a miracle thirty-three miners trapped for over two weeks in a Chilean mine have been found alive. As you can see in the video below from MSNBC, the workers stuck 700 meters below ground made contact with rescuers by attaching notes to a drill and subsequently by camera:

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The workers are stuck in a protective shelter in the San Jose mine and it’s possible for them to receive food and other supplies for survival. This will be vital since experts believe that they will not be freed until December at the earliest.

The accident that has left the miners trapped since August 5th has led to increased scrutiny of mining safety in Chile. "This company has got to modernize," wrote one of the stuck workers in a note to his family regarding the mine owned by a small local private company. The San Jose mine has had a spotty safety record including the deaths of sixteen workers in recent years according to the government. The incident has led President Sebastian Pinera to call for a major overhaul of mining oversight in a country that is the world’s largest copper producer.

Online Sources- NPR, MSNBC, BBC News, Al Jazeera English, Reuters, Bloomberg, The Telegraph