Chilean miner sends message of hope
ONE of the 33 Chilean miners rescued after 70 days underground in 2010 has urged the trapped Thai schoolchildren to hold firm in the belief that they will survive their ordeal.
“Do not lose faith or hope,” said Juan Carlos Aguilar, one of the supervisors in the group that was buried alive by the collapse in the San José mine.
Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, Mr Aguilar said it was a “miracle” that the youth football team had been found unharmed. With the 12 boys and their coach potentially facing months underground before they can be rescued, the veteran miner said that keeping each other in good spirits and united was of the greatest importance. Like the young footballers, the 33 miners spent a long period – in their case 17 days – cut off from the world before making contact with rescuers. Mr Aguilar said that now the team had been found, they could be given sufficient water and food to keep them physically nourished, but added that they also needed psychological support. “To know that we had our families there above us, this was very helpful – it sustains you,” he said.
The miner advised the Thai children to try and adhere to as a normal a routine as possible.
“We never lost the notion of time,” he said. “If you don’t know if it is day or night it is going to be much more complicated.”
Mr Aguilar said that his group had found its strength in prayers, holding regular prayer sessions.
“There was one [miner] who did lose hope, from the first day he was saying we were going to die, but us, with the prayers and all this, this maintained us, and it maintained us united.”