The underground nightmare that started two months ago for a group of Chilean miners could soon be coming to an end.

Enlarge By Roberto Candia, AP Jaime Manalich, Chile's Minsiter of Health, right, speaks to an air force officer prior to a practice drill to prepare for the medical evacuation of the 33 trapped miners at the San Jose mine near Copiapo, Chile. SAN JOSE MINE, Chile  "Edison, you will be greater than Elvis." The sign is attached to some rocks at the start of a dirt road that runs uphill through Camp Hope, an encampment of tents and trailers where anxious relatives have been following the rescue efforts to dig out 33 miners trapped by a cave-in nearly nine weeks ago. The sign put up by the family of miner Edison Peña reflects the high hopes of fame, and certainly money, that many relatives here have once the men are brought back to the surface of the Atacama desert and thrust more fully into a global spotlight. "He will give TV interviews to those who pay the most," says Jessica Yáñez, the wife of Esteban Rojas. Rojas' unshaved face was the first image the outside world saw of those trapped in the gold and copper mine. "We have suffered a lot and now is payment time; we have to take advantage of this tragedy," she says, adding that she has a preliminary deal with a Chilean TV station to pay for her husband's appearance. For all the hopes that miners' families have of cashing in on a calamity, there is a sobering reality: The tedious effort to rescue the miners could yet end in disaster and death, and the outcome could depend on decisions made today. Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said Thursday that a rescue drill is only 328 feet from the small cavern where the miners have been living since Aug. 5, when a collapse trapped them a half-mile below the surface. Golborne was huddling with mining engineers for the state-owned mining conglomerate as well as engineers for the company that operates the mine, and experts with the operators of the massive rescue drill that has been grinding through the rock night and day for weeks. "The deeper it gets, the more complicated things become," says Eugenio Eguiguren, international vice president of Geotec Boyles Bros., the Chilean company that owns and operates the T130, a mobile drill rig normally used to bore water wells this drill that is boring the rescue hole. The team must select from a couple of possible techniques for the final approach, according to Andre Sougarret, a mining engineer with Codelco, Chile's state copper mining giant. The wrong technique could cause a cave-in and entomb the miners for eternity. The debate is over whether to first line the rescue hole with a steel tube before sending down a rescue capsule. A capsule coming up a shaft of rock could get stuck or loosen rocks that could then tumble down and cause a cave-in. A shaft encased in steel would make for a virtually risk-free ride for the miners. But the shaft is not vertical the entire way. Steel tubing would have to bend and force its way through, which also carries the risk of a cave-in. If the team decides to not go with the casing, the miners could start emerging Sunday if all goes well, Golborne says. Like a reality TV show Since the first contact with the miners was made on Aug. 17, the story and fate of the men has been broadcast daily in Chilean news programs, morning shows, competition and game shows, thanks to an array of videos that comes out of the mine almost daily. They might be stuck 2,200 feet below ground, but the miners have become some of the most famous people in Chile. On Sept. 18, Chile's Independence Day, 25,000 people attending a celebration of freedom from Spain at the National Stadium in Santiago cheered wildly when Don Francisco, Univision's popular TV showman, announced a new video in which the miners sent greetings to the country. The next day, President Sebastian Piñera held in his arms Esperanza Ticona, the 4-day-old newborn of miner Ariel Ticona. With TV cameras rolling, Piñera showed the baby to Ticona in a live videoconference, the first time the miner had seen his child, Esperanza. A few days earlier, trapped miner Franklin Lobos, a former professional soccer player, analyzed for a local radio station Chile's performance in a friendly soccer game with Ukraine. For D-Day, which is what the Chilean government is calling whatever day the rescues occur, there will be live, non-stop television coverage. Officials at the San Jose mine already have used bulldozers to level a site at a nearby hill that offers a good view of the spot where rescuers hope to bring out miners. The government expects to accommodate about 300 reporters from around the world for the event. The government also will have a satellite broadcast available to anyone, with a special Web page that will broadcast the rescues live online. "It's really strange to have regular visual contact with a group of people we (who) don't know, with an absolute certainty, will be able to survive," says Eduardo Arriagada, a communications professor at Santiago's Catholic University. "It's the same type of attraction many people feel with the reality shows on TV." Felipe Aldunate, editor in chief of the Santiago-based business magazine AmericaEconomia, posted on Twitter on Aug. 26: "Months of TV coverage of the trapped miners will be a reality show. Some TV station will propose that the audience votes for who will get out first." "The media couldn't have asked for a better unforced event," says Marcelo Montecinos, a Chilean blogger who writes regularly about media. "How much would it have taken to actually have 33 people willing to go down into a mine and stay there for months without having the possibility of 'chickening out' or being 'voted out' by their peers or audience? If there was a TV camera down there filming 24 hours, it would have the highest rating on worldwide TV," Montecinos says. Here at Camp Hope, the media frenzy has made some miners' relatives regular guests on Chile's TV. One of them is Maria Segovia, dubbed "the mayor" of the makeshift settlement because of her eagerness to talk to reporters and mingle with everyone at the mine. Some miners' families have criticized Segovia — whose brother Victor is among the trapped miners — saying she trying to parlay misfortune into money and fame too early. Segovia appears regularly on news broadcasts and went on a Chilean show that specializes in getting ordinary people to tearfully recount their tragedies for viewers as melancholy music plays in the background. Some who appear receive payment for their emotional testimony. "I have rejected new offers to go to TV programs," she says, denying that she has been paid for TV appearances. "First is first, we have to focus on getting out our men." The miners are aware of the media frenzy above ground, because their families tell them in letters or the weekly videoconferences about Chilean TV stations' interest in having them on programs. And twice a day, they watch the live newscast of Chile's public broadcaster. At the beginning the rescue teams tried to "filter" the news. Not anymore. When Jessica Yañez told her husband, Esteban Rojas, about offers to appear on TV after the rescue, he asked: "How much are we talking about?" Alberto Iturra, the chief psychologist in charge of overseeing the emotional aspects of the miners, says the trapped men have been talking to lawyers to get advice on how to manage and profit from the media interest once they get out of the mine. They also are asking for communication experts who could help them to deal with an avalanche of media requests, he says. For now they are receiving guidance from a public agency in charge of workplace security and insurance. "Some of them like the media attention, others not so much," Iturra says. "But we are trying to help them to establish limits with which they feel comfortable." Ricardo Martinez, researcher at the Center of Cognitive Studies from the University of Chile, worries that the miners, who are from humble backgrounds, may come to regret the attention they are about to receive. He says studies have shown that lottery winners often wind up less happy than they were before their good fortune. "I think the miners will go through a similar process that is experienced by some people who win the lottery," Martinez says. "It wouldn't surprise me that after one year of media exposure some of the miners will be back working at similar mines." Francisco Javier Diaz, a political columnist and former government official, says the miners may feel they were better off below ground once they see what's been happening on the surface. "Nobody wants the miners to be used and squeezed by the media, to live through moments of envy and human misery after their rescue," he said. Some have drawn a parallel with the story of the Uruguay rugby team that crashed in the Andes in 1972 and survived in freezing conditions for 72 days by resorting to cannibalism. A few of the survivors spent years retelling their story to publishers, television broadcasters and filmmakers, including Hollywood-producers who filmed a version of their tale called Alive. But the Uruguayans came from wealthy families and did not need the money. Most of the miners come from a working class background with little education, which some experts worry means they will be easy prey for people looking to exploit them. Most of the miners earned an average of $1,000 per month before the accident. "When these miners come out ... there will be a lot of pressure on them from society, the media and others wanting part of their time," says Michael Duncan, NASA's deputy chief medical officer, who advised the rescuers on the effects of prolonged isolation in confined spaces. "I think Chileans have not gotten to the point of thinking how difficult this post-rescue effort is going to be." Iturra, the lead psychologist, agrees. "We can help them to search for professional advice, but my duty is to make sure that they get out well," he says. Once they are freed the miners largely will be on their own, he adds. Rescue not guaranteed In a restricted area at the mine there is a shack where the miners are watched day and night via a video hookup. Members of the rescue team, including psychologists, government officials and engineers, communicate with the miners from the shack. The miners have a 50-inch expandable movie screen, a 200-watt lighting system and a fixed camera on a tripod. The tripod was sent down after an earlier camera broke when it fell from one of the miners hands. They also have two handheld cameras that are used to shoot other footage. The rescue team has the miners transmit images of the walls and ceilings to help rescuers figure out the best approach for the drill. "We start transmissions at 9 a.m. and end broadcasting at midnight, every day," says Luis Felipe Mujica, general manager of Micomo, a telecommunications subsidiary of Codelco. The miners produce two to three technical videos per day on subjects such as how debris removal is going. They also shoot videos for their families and the Chilean public, he says. There are live videoconferences with miners' relatives on Saturdays and Sundays. Each family gets five minutes with their miner. "The images we have seen go through the government filter," Arriagada says. "And the government has not released enough lately to make this the ultimate reality show." However, relatives have sent down smart phones and some miners record "exclusive" video and send it to their family members, who then sell it to local TV stations. Meanwhile, the miners are receiving attention well beyond Chile. The miners have received greetings from Pope Benedict XVI and been given signed shirts from Brazilian soccer superstar Pele. They've gotten an invitation to attend a match of famed Spanish soccer team Real Madrid, a one-week stay in Greece, a visit to Ukraine and many other invites. Santiago consultant firms have told relatives that the miners could get thousands of dollars to give inspiration talks of survival to business executives. But first the men have to be rescued, something that is not guaranteed. Brandon Fisher, president of Pennsylvania-based Center Rock Inc., which makes a drilling system being used at the mine, says he is concerned that installing pipe could complicate the rescue. "When you're running casing in an angled hole like this, it's very, very difficult to make that happen," he says. "This particular hole also has doglegs and turns. It's not simple like a straight vertical hole." Omar Gallardo, a professor of mining engineering at the University of Santiago, favors inserting the pipe. "With the available information, and to not run any risk at all, I would encase it. It would be less risky for the miners," Gallardo said. "They've been down there for 61 days. Giving them a few more days down there in exchange for being able to pull them out safely is preferable." As D-Day nears, the Chilean government has tried to slow down the daily release of video from the men. The first to emerge will find hundreds of camera lenses on him, but whom that will be has not been decided. That will be determined by a medic from the Chilean Navy and a mining safety engineer from Codelco, which says the protocol is for the "skilled ones" (los hábiles) to come first, because they are better prepared to fix a problem if something goes wrong along the way. Next come the "weak ones," those miners with medical conditions, and lastly the "strong ones," mostly the leaders of the mining group. Maria Segovia, "the mayor," says she is worried what will happen next. "They know that everybody is waiting for them, not only we, the families, but the media, the whole world. I'm not sure they really know what's awaiting them. I, for one, really don't know what's awaiting them." Contributing: The Associated Press; Bloomberg News Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more