WRAP First light at mine, miners' relatives at 'Camp Hope'; papers, sots

(10 Oct 2010) SHOTLIST
Copiapo
1. Wide of mine site with cranes and drilling rigs
Copiapo
2. Wide of work at escape shaft site in fog
3. Mid of crane lowering lining into shaft
4. Wide of site
Copiapo
5. Flags, 33 - one for each trapped miner, shrouded in fog
6. Wide of tribute to miners
7. Close of sign with photo of one miner, reading (Spanish) "Richard Villaroel G. We are waiting for you."
Copiapo
8. Evangelical preacher giving sermon for trapped miners families and friends under tent
9. Preacher talking to trapped miners families and friends
10. Various of trapped miners families and friends listening to sermon
11. Various of children dressed up in carnival outfits at mine
12. Celestina Bugueno in front of trapped miners pictures pointing at her son's picture, Victor Zamora Bugueno
13. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Celestina Bugueno, Mother of trapped miner Victor Zamora Bugueno:
"I am happy because my son is about to come out, and it is the Lord's miracle that my son is alive with the others. The Lord made a miracle and they are alive."
14. Wide of mine site with drills
15. Police at checkpoint outside mine
Copiapo
16. Wide of mine and camp
17. Mid of tents
18. Pull out of camp
Santiago
19. Various of news stand and headlines
20. Various of newspapers showing picture of officials celebrating progress in rescue efforts
21. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Mario Gonzalez, Santiago resident:
"It is great for the families of the miners and for the Chilean people it is a joy."
22. Mid of newspaper seller
23. Various of people reading newspapers in street
STORYLINE
After more than two months trapped deep in a Chilean mine, 33 miners were tantalisingly close to rescue on Sunday.
Drillers have completed an escape shaft, and Chile's mining minister says a video inspection shows the hole's walls are firm enough to allow the men to be hoisted out as early as Wednesday.
Officials said late on Saturday that workers first must reinforce the top few hundred feet (almost 100 metres) of the tunnel and have begun welding steel pipes for that purpose.
The completion of the 28-inch (71-centimetre)-diameter escape shaft on Saturday morning caused great excitement in the tent city known as "Camp Hope," where the miners' relatives had held vigil for an agonising 66 days since a cave-in sealed off the gold and copper mine on 5 August.
Miners videotaped the piston-powered hammer drill's breakthrough at 2,041 feet (622 metres) underground and could be seen cheering and embracing, the drillers said.
On the surface, the rescuers chanted, danced and sprayed champagne so excitedly that some of their hardhats tumbled off.
Later, a video inspection of the shaft gave rescuers enough confidence in the tunnel's stability that they decided they will encase only its first 315 feet (96 metres).
The plan is to insert 16 sections of half-inch (1.27 centimetre)-thick steel pipe into the top of the hole, which curves like a waterfall at first before becoming nearly vertical for most of its descent into the chamber deep in the mine.
That work would begin immediately, Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said.
Then an escape capsule built by Chilean naval engineers, its spring-loaded wheels pressing against the hole's walls, can be lowered into it via a winch and the trapped miners brought up one by one.
Golborne and other government officials had insisted that determining whether to encase the whole shaft, only part of it, or none of it, would be a technical decision, based on the evidence and the expertise of a team of eight geologists and mining engineers.

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