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The leader of the 33 rescued Chilean miners yesterday told of their desperate struggle to stay sane as they almost starved to death.

Luis Urzua, 54, revealed the men were in panic as the meagre food supplies almost ran out in their harrowing first 17 days in the underground hellhole.

But he said somehow the ravenous miners managed to restrain themselves from devouring their rations all at once - and miraculously survived by eating two small mouthfuls of tuna, a biscuit and a sip of milk every two days.

The heroes of San Jose also revealed yesterday a second cave-in two days after the first left them feeling they were doomed to die 2,000ft below ground.

Speaking after he became the final miner to be freed from the 70-day ordeal, foreman Luis recalled: "We had little food. We were eating every 48 hours to leave something for later."

Luis vividly remembers the chaos when the mine collapsed above them and the panicking men scrambled amid the thick dust and darkness to find an exit.

It was not until hours after the dense clouds of grit settled he could calm down his frantic colleagues.

Recalling their despair, Luis said: "The most difficult moment was when the air cleared and we saw the rock. I had thought maybe it was going to be a day or two days, but when I saw the rock...

"We knew this was going to be difficult.

Suddenly a lot of people tried to do things that were not the best, but luckily we learned to maintain sanity, and thank God there was no accident."

The men felt the slim hopes of escaping alive reduced dramatically when a second cave-in thundered round them two days after the first on August 5. Richard Villaroel, 23, feared he would never see his pregnant wife again or their new baby. Speaking from his hospital bed last night, he said: "That's when the mine closed off completely."

But their spirits were lifted when they could hear rescuers' drills above them just days after they were entombed.

And when a rescue probe reached them more than two weeks into their ordeal they were ecstatic.

Urzua, who has 31 years' mining experience, said the men rushed to embrace the device as it entered the shelter. He explained: "We all wanted to hug it."

The stricken men then burst into a rousing rendition of their national anthem as stunned relatives on the surface cried with joy. Urzua said the men wanted to write lots of notes to send up asking for different things, including food and water.

But in the end they decided a note from Jose Ojeda, 45, would be the first sent up as it would tell the rescuers all they needed to know.

The miners famously then tied Ojeda's piece of paper to the drill with a written message reading: "All 33 of us are fine in the shelter." Two days later, Urzua spoke to Chilean president Sebastian Pinera on the phone and told him: "Under a sea of rock, we are waiting for the whole of Chile to pull hard so that we can be taken out of this hell."

The president replied: "I know that it has been hell, but it is a hell that has meant for our country a resurrection in spirit, in strength, in hope."

Despite a rescue now being under way, Urzua said some of the miners became worryingly depressed and often sank into dark moods. But he knew it was his job as foreman to keep them focused and raise their spirits by keeping everyone talking.

Urzua said: "I had enough strength to talk to the workers, telling them what was happening. Those who had faith hoped someday we could be rescued."

Even right to the end, he fought to keep them laughing and smiling.

As manic Mario Sepulveda, 40, became the second man to be winched to safety, Urzua joked with the miners underground: "They finally took him away, we were all tired of him!" He also joked after finally getting out of the mine after two and a half months: "A shift of 70 days. That's a long shift."