Rescue in a few days for trapped miners

The government's mining minister said that the extraction of the 33 men will probably begin on Wednesday, after an inspection revealed that the new hole is mostly strong enough to enable them to escape safely.

He said only a stretch at the top will be reinforced with steel pipe.

The completion of the rescue shaft caused bedlam in the tent city known as Camp Hope, where the miners' relatives have held vigil since a cave-in sealed off the gold and copper mine on August 5.

Miners videotaping the drill breaking through a chamber's ceiling 2,041ft underground could be seen cheering joyfully and hugging each other, the drillers said.

At the surface, the rescuers chanted, danced and sprayed champagne so excitedly that some of their hard hats tumbled off.

"On the video, they all started shouting and hugging and celebrating," said James Stefanic, operations manager for the US-Chilean drilling company Geotec.

The success of the escape shaft was a tremendous relief for families of the miners.

"We feel an enormous happiness," said Darwin Contreras, whose brother Pedro, a 26-year-old heavy machine operator, is stuck down below. "Now we just have to wait for them to get out, just a little bit longer now."

Contractor Jeff Hart, of Denver, Colorado, operated the drill, pounding through solid rock and the detritus of the collapsed mine, which corkscrews deep below a remote hill in Chile's Atacama desert.

"There is nothing more important than saving – possibly saving – 33 lives. There's no more important job than that," Mr Hart said. "We've done our part, now it's up to them to get the rest of the way out."

While the Plan A and Plan C drills stalled after repeatedly veering off course, the Plan B T130 drill reached the miners after 33 days of drilling.