Chilean miners may begin final rescue operation four hours early

An operation to hoist 33 trapped Chilean miners to the surface may begin four hours earlier than expected, at 8:00pm local time Tuesday, a lawmaker said.

"It's fairly certain that we can start the rescue today [Tuesday] at 8:00pm," said Carlos Vilches, the representative for the Copiapo region, where the mine is located.

The rescue was previously scheduled to begin at midnight Tuesday local time, but officials were increasingly confident that they had everything prepared to begin earlier.

"It was within our planning to move things forward if the [preparatory] stages were completed in advance. This is what happened," Vilches said.

EPA

A group of recuers participate in a rehearsal to rescue 33 trapped miners.

Initially, officials thought it would take until Christmas to get the miners out -- but the drilling of a rescue tunnel 2,041 feet (622 meters) deep to reach the gallery where the miners were trapped was completed last weekend, well ahead of time.

Since then, tests of the tunnel were successfully completed, and all looked set to slowly bring the men up, one by one. The last of the miners were expected to be saved by late Thursday.

The 32 Chileans and one Bolivian were trapped in the San Jose mine in northern Chile on Aug. 5 when its upper galleries collapsed. They were detected alive 17 days later, triggering the frantic rescue operation.

Chilean President Sebastian Pinera was due to arrive at the mine Tuesday to oversee the rescue and "give support to the families" of the miners.