Griselda Godoy,packs clothes to be sent to her son Carlos Barrios, into the mine where he is trapped... 
(AP)
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Their routine starts with breakfast — hot coffee or tea with milk and a ham-and-cheese sandwich. Then lots of labor: Removing the loose rock that drops through the bore holes as they are being widened into escape tunnels; cleaning up their trash and emptying the toilet; and attending to the capsules known as "palomas" — Spanish for carrier pigeons — that are lowered to them with supplies.
The miners must quickly remove the contents — food, clean clothes, medicine, family letters and other supplies — and send back up material such as dirty clothes, rolled up like sausages to fit. Each trip down takes 12 to 15 minutes, then four minutes for unloading and five minutes to pull them back up. At least three miners are constantly stationed at the bore hole for this work.
"They know that the paloma never stops — they're watching for it," said Alejandro Pino, the rescue operations chief for Chile's workplace insurance association, which is responsible for preparing the miners' food and supporting their mental and physical health.
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Another bore hole is used for communications, electricity, air and water.
Tubes pump at least 100 liters (106 quarts) of water a day and about 114 cubic meters (4,024 cubic feet) of fresh air an hour into the mine, said Erik Araya, a geologist for Codelco, Chile's state-owned copper company. That enables the miners to take showers and slightly reduces the sweltering heat down below.
Thanks to the pumped-in air, some lower sections have dropped to about 82 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius), while the upper part of their chamber remains above 90 degrees (32 degrees Celsius).
There is little they can do about the humidity — it remains at 90 percent, Pino said — and many of the miners can still be seen shirtless in images recorded by a video camera the rescue team sent down.
The video connection — using compact cameras with LED lights that enable the men to be seen in color — is proving to be a mixed blessing. The noisy air and water pumps must be turned off during the video chats.
Cristian Barra, a top interior ministry official, said officials have been discouraging the men from making other videos for the general public because "it's an emotional and physical effort that distracts them from the main goal, which is getting ready for the rescue."
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