Barrios has been valuable to authorities in trying to get the miners out, using his first-aid training to treat sick colleagues. They miners were located late last month, more than two weeks after becoming trapped in a shaft collapse on August 5. The newspaper report comes as Health Minister Jaime Manalich said all 33 miners trapped underground would soon be able to see and talk to loved ones through a video link. The morale-boosting technology will be made possible by lowering a fibre-optic cable to the men, who were cut off deep down in the San Jose mine by a cave-in more than four weeks ago. "They will be able to have private conversations with their families through a TV screen," Manalich told reporters.

Family members will most likely be restricted in what they can say, as is already the case with written notes read first by authorities to make sure there are no remarks that could create false hopes or lead to despair. "For example, one family wrote 'We're sure they'll get you out before [Chile's] national holiday September 18.' We asked them not to do that," Manalich said. Official estimates are that it will take three to four months to extract the men from 700 metres below the earth's surface. They have been told salvation is more than two months away, but not given a precise date. Manalich insisted, though, "our miners are as solid as rock" and were holding up well, physically and mentally, under their ordeal. The careful psychological attention being given to the miners came as the rescue operation to save them hit early problems.

The drill which started this week boring down to the men had to be stopped on Thursday to cement over a geological fault that threatened to make the escape shaft unstable. "We have managed 41 metres so far," the chief engineer overseeing the rescue operation, Andre Sougarret, told reporters. "The operation will continue at 1am [3pm AEST] on Friday," he said. A second drill is on the way to begin another shaft as a plan B, in case the original bore encounters problems.

Sougarret said the second machine should start work from Sunday, enlarging one of the three existing supply holes. Initially, the wider shaft would be for sending larger objects to the trapped miners, but officials say an evaluation will be carried out to see whether it could work as an escape tunnel. A team of NASA experts was at the mine, near the town of Copiapo in northern Chile, to dispense valuable expertise in keeping men healthy over long periods of isolation.

Already, the team told Chilean officials to be as honest as possible with the miners about their predicament, but not to give them any fixed date for when they will finally see the light of day. Simulating day and night was also important, to give the men a rhythm in their hot, dank subterranean surroundings, and Chilean officials said NASA was helping to rig up a lighting system to do that effectively. The miners were being fed, hydrated, clothed and medicated and given forms of entertainment - videos and playing cards - to while away the long wait. Since Thursday, they were also being fed proper, hot meals of nutritionally balanced dishes, which "was well received by some of the miners", according to the National Emergencies Office. One of the three fist-sized drill holes dug to them was serving as an intercom conduit, permitting occasional voice conversations with waiting family members.

Some of the men were starting to show dental problems and three had minor skin conditions most likely in reaction to vaccines they received this week, but overall their health was considered good, the emergency office said. Work was additionally being carried out to study how to provide the men with electricity and better supplies of water and air. While much attention was focused on the men below ground, one official on the surface increasingly finding himself in the spotlight was Mining Minister Laurence Golborne. He has interacted warmly with the miners' families, crying and laughing with them as he spends night and day at the mine. Indeed, one family has asked him to preside over a religious wedding planned between one miner and his long-time partner after the rescue is complete.

According to a private polling firm, Adimark, Golborne's public recognition factor has shot up 24 points to 91 per cent since the disaster. Loading "I haven't seen anyone jump so far, so quickly in 30 years I've been doing surveys," said Adimark director Roberto Mendez. AAP and AFP

