{"id":208791,"date":"2025-10-12T22:25:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T22:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/208791\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T22:25:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T22:25:11","slug":"today-in-history-october-13-trapped-miners-forced-to-ration-single-can-of-tuna-between-33-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/208791\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in History – October 13: Trapped miners forced to ration single can of tuna between 33 men"},"content":{"rendered":"

T\ufeffhe last of 33 miners trapped in a Chilean mine for a record-setting 69 days were pulled to the surface on October 13, 2010.<\/p>\n

Their ordeal started on August 5 when the upper galleries of the San Jose copper and gold mine, 1000km north of the capital Santiago, collapsed, leaving them stranded 690 metres underground.<\/p>\n

The 33 men moved to an emergency shelter\ufeff, where they found two days’ worth of food and water.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/On August 5, 2010, 33 miners became trapped when Chile’s San Jose mine collapsed. Over the next 69 days, the world watched and waited until all were brought to safety. (CNN)<\/p>\n

But they had no means of communicating with the surface, and were unsure if authorities even knew of the mine collapse.<\/p>\n

In fact, 130 emergency workers had been mobilised to rescue the trapped miners, but hopes of finding them quickly were dashed when another cave-in blocked the rescue team’s path.<\/p>\n

\ufeffMeanwhile, the stranded men had to overcome hunger, boredom and sapping humidity in their refuge until help arrived.<\/p>\n

To maintain a sense of order, they formed a mini society\ufeff. The men took on roles that included a priest, a doctor, a poet a TV presenter and a foreman.<\/p>\n

They also established a series of jobs and routines to keep up their morale.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Families of the 33 trapped miners refused to give up hope for their rescue during the 69-day ordeal.. (CNN)<\/p>\n

But hunger proved the biggest test. One survivor, Richard Villaroel, later told the Guardian newspaper about the horrific conditions.<\/p>\n

“We were waiting for death. We were consuming ourselves … we were so skinny,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We were getting eaten up, as we were working. We were moving, but not eating well. We started to eat ourselves up and get skinnier and skinnier. That is called cannibalism, a sailor down there said. My body was eating itself up.”<\/p>\n

For weeks, the group rationed one can of tuna between the 33 men, supplemented by a biscuit and a mouthful of water. The meagre single meal was doled out every 48 hours to conserve supply.<\/p>\n

Rescuers later \ufeffsent down a probe that could send down more food and water as well as messages from loved ones.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/Thousands gathered at the mine to watch the miners’ rescue, while a global television audience of 1 billion people followed the event. (CNN)<\/p>\n

But it was weeks before\ufeff authorities were able to build a missile-like escape capsule that could pull the miners to freedom.<\/p>\n

Every one of the 33 men made the claustrophobic solo 15-minute journey to the surface, where they were greeted by euphoric crowds.<\/p>\n

More than 1 billion people across the world followed their rescue, making it one of the most-watched television events in history\ufeff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T\ufeffhe last of 33 miners trapped in a Chilean mine for a record-setting 69 days were pulled to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-208791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}