Chilean President Sebastian Pinera says 33 miners are alive and contact has been established with them 17 days after a structural collapse trapped them below ground.

"All 33 of us are well inside the shelter," Pinera said on Sunday, waving a message scribbled in red pencil that the trapped miners sent to rescuers on the surface through a shaft drilled 700 metres below the ground.

Chile's President Sebastian Pinera holds up a plastic bag containing a message from the trapped miners that reads in Spanish "We are ok in the refuge, the 33 miners" Credit:AP

"This came out of the ground. It's a message from our miners telling us they are alive, that they are together," Pinera told reporters outside the mine, 800km north of Santiago.

The miners have been trapped since August 5 in the San Jose gold and copper mine near the northern city of Copiapo. Until Sunday there had been no word from them, and hopes for their survival were fading.