The first of the 33 trapped miners in Chile came to the surface during the night. The rescue process is slowly underway. Retrieving these men from half a mile underground required immediate technological improvisation, and The New York Times has an interactive graphic explaining the solution devised by engineers.
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It has involved untold millions of dollars, specialists from NASA and drilling experts from a dozen or so countries. Some here at the mine have compared the rescue effort to the Apollo 13 space mission, for the emotional tension it has caused and the expectation of a collective sigh of relief at the end.
But the Chileans were in uncharted territory. To their knowledge, no one had tried a rescue so far underground. Keeping the miners alive and in good spirits, much less getting them out, would be an enormous challenge.
Doctors from NASA and Chilean Navy officers with experience in submarines were consulted on the strains of prolonged confinement. The miners had lost considerable weight and were living off emergency rations.
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You can see live footage of this at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11489439 This includes the occasional live shot of a camera on the top of the capsule being pulled trough the rescue bore-hole. For the majority of the 10+ minute ascent, you can't even see a glimmer of daylight at the top of the shaft.
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