Wednesday, October 13, 2010

US Drills, Technology Drilled Hole To Rescue Chilean Miners

From New York Times article, "Plan B Turns Out to Be Fastest Path for Rescue" by Henry Fountain:
In the days immediately after the discovery that 33 workers trapped at the San José Mine were alive, Chilean officials cautioned that it might take up to four months to reach them with a rescue hole.

In the end, it took only about six weeks to do what mine safety experts say is a job with little precedent:
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Three efforts to bore through the abrasive volcanic rock went forward simultaneously — known as Plans A, B, and C — but it was Plan B that broke through to the miners first.

"To tell you the truth, I don’t think anyone had a whole lot of faith in us,” said Brandon Fisher, president of Center Rock, a company in Berlin, Pa., that supplied the Plan B drills. “They didn’t understand the technology."
Read the complete New York Times article here.

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