고등학교 영어Ⅰ (NE능률 오선영) 연계 글

On August 5, 2010, part of a tunnel collapsed deep inside the San José copper and gold mine in Chile's Atacama Desert. The rockfall trapped thirty-three workers about 700 meters underground. The men retreated to an emergency shelter, where a small store of food had been kept for accidents like this one. That food, however, had been meant to last only a few days, and no one could say how long the men would have to wait.

For the next seventeen days, the men were completely isolated from the world above. Underground, the shift supervisor helped the men stay together as a team during this uncertain time. He divided them into three work shifts, each with its own leader, and chose one man to look after everyone's health. The men also followed a strict plan for the food, so each person received only a tiny portion every other day. Meanwhile, rescue crews at the surface kept drilling narrow holes deep into the rock, hoping to locate the trapped men.

On August 22, a drill broke through into a tunnel near the shelter. When the workers pulled the drill back up, they found a note attached to it: all thirty-three men were safe. Food and water traveled down small holes, but a shaft wide enough for a person would take weeks to drill.

Chilean officials therefore asked NASA whether its experience with astronauts could help keep the men healthy. At the mine, a NASA engineer asked Chilean navy engineers how they planned to lift the men and what their capsule would need to do. His team also asked how long each ride might take, and the answers ranged from one to four hours. Since a ride could last hours, the team listed more than fifty requirements, such as lights and extra oxygen. The navy, which built the capsule, adopted most of these ideas.

The rescue began late on October 12, and a capsule called Phoenix carried the men up one at a time. Each man wore a harness designed for astronauts, which helped doctors check his heart rate and breathing. By the night of October 13, sixty-nine days after the collapse, every man was back on the surface. Their return depended both on the discipline maintained below ground and on the expertise shared above it.