69 days underground

The miners had been trapped since Aug. 5 and were confirmed alive on Aug. 22. It had once been estimated that the rescue would take four months.

On Saturday, a 624-meter deep rescue tunnel was completed, allowing the final phase of the rescue operation to start Wednesday.

A miner of 31 years, Urzua studied topography and was the foreman at the time of the collapse.

Urzua became the leader of the miners when they were trapped. He made blueprints of the shelter and proposed moving the shelter to a less humid place. He also organized the food rationing.

He was the first among the miners to talk with President Pinera and Mining Minister Laurence Golborne.

"We have done what the whole world was waiting for," he told Pinera upon surfacing. "The hard fight in the 70 days was not in vain."

1st miner rescued

The last phase of the rescue had been going on for about one day since Tuesday, when the first rescue worker Manuel Gonzalez was sent down in the capsule to assist the miners.

Florencio Avalos, 31, was the first to reach the ground Tuesday night after spending 69 days underground.

Hundreds of people, including family members and President Pinera, had been waiting there.

Amid a wave of applause, cheers and sirens, he walked out of the Phoenix capsule, a 54-cm-wide and four-meter-high steel tube built by the Chilean Navy to carry the miners through a 662-meter shaft.

His 7-year-old son rushed to him and they hugged each other, bursting into tears.

In the spotlight, he was greeted by family members and President Pinera as well as hundreds of others at the scene.

Mario Sepulveda, the second miner rescued, was also greeted with cheers as he walked out of the capsule.

He was followed by Juan Illanes and, some 40 minutes after him, Carlos Mamani, who was the only foreigner trapped. He is from Bolivia.

One by one, the miners were rescued at intervals of dozens of minutes. Urzua was the last one to step out of the capsule late Wednesday.

After Urzua's rescue, the five rescue workers who went down to assist the miners were brought to the surface.

(Xinhua News Agency October 14, 2010)