A relieved Chile braces for a long mine rescue

San Jose: Through a skinny borehole from the surface, the 33 miners trapped more than 2,000 feet below the parched earth here have gotten a gel-like substance to keep them alive, tiny lights to illuminate the darkness and encouraging notes from their families waiting above.

What they have not gotten is the difficult news: that it could take more than three months to pull them to the surface. No one has told them, for fear of breaking their spirit.

"Psychologically, we have to try to keep them on the right track," said Laurence Golborne, Chile's mining minister. "They are miners, so they understand the situation they are living. They understand that we have to go through 700 meters of solid rock to rescue them." But even so, he added, "we don't want them to suffer ups and downs."

For many of the families now camping in a makeshift tent city outside the mine, a place bursting with Chilean flags and religious artifacts, it was nothing short of a miracle when President Sebastián Piñera presented a handwritten note from the miners on national television on Sunday, assuring Chile that all of the miners had somehow survived their feared entombment after a cave-in on Aug. 5.

The miners later used a modified telephone to sing Chile's national anthem to the hundreds of teary-eyed relatives celebrating above. In Santiago, the capital, motorists honked their car horns and people cheered wildly on subway platforms.

Now the reality of the challenge ahead is sinking in for the families on the surface. Omar Rojas, 34, the son of a trapped miner, knows his father will have to spend weeks trying to keep his health and mind in order before he can again lay eyes on his five children, 14 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

"We will be here for him, no matter how long it takes," Mr. Rojas said, vowing to stay put and wait.

For the next few months, the trapped miners will spend much of their time in a hot, stuffy chamber about 33 feet by 20 feet, while a machine slowly digs an opening thousands of feet deep to rescue them and the nation continues to grapple with the fallout from the ordeal.

The president has already fired some high-ranking mining regulators and ordered a review of worker safety in Chile. A congressional investigation has begun, lawsuits have started to be filed and authorities are warning that those responsible for the cave-in will be brought to justice.

In presenting a newly created work safety committee in the Presidential Palace on Monday, Mr. Piñera said, "We've said that on this issue there will be no impunity, and I want to stress that both the criminal and civil investigations are already under way and we are going to investigate the responsibilities and sanction the guilty."

But here at the mine, the focus is more immediate. For the next five days, the miners will be shuttled a diet of sugared water and a gel with vitamins and protein before they can start receiving solid food. The food and liquids are being delivered through plastic tubes used to move items throughout the mine, along with oxygen, paper notes from family members and an asthma inhaler for one miner, officials said.

Before they were found, the miners had been surviving on two spoonfuls of tuna, a cup of milk, one cracker and a bit of a peach topping eaten every two days, family members said.

Psychologists are now preparing family members to speak to the miners for the first time, cautioning them not to become too emotional or mention the estimated timetable for the rescue, which government officials still hold out hopes can be reduced to as little as a month.

Games are being organized, dominoes and cards among them, to keep the miners working as a team and their minds focused, government ministers said here.

Officials said Tuesday that it could take three months or more to extricate the miners. The special machine that will dig the tunnel to their freedom arrived Tuesday afternoon on a truck escorted by police cars, sirens blaring.

In the interim, the miners will have some ability to move around the section where they are holed up, but the health minister said he wanted to strictly segregate the spaces -- some would be "clean areas," some "dirty areas," some for eating, or doing exercise -- to try to "maintain sanitary conditions and prevent any contamination."

Questions continue to swirl about why the mine caved in. The owner, the San Esteban Mining Company, has tried to deflect discussion of blame. One of the company's owners, Alejandro Bohn, said in a radio interview on Monday that "this is not the time to talk about responsibilities or ask for forgiveness."

But mining unions, lawmakers and even some who have worked for the company said it had a long history of disregarding safety regulations. Its executives were charged with involuntary manslaughter in 2007 after the death of a miner a year earlier, said Senator Baldo Prokurica, who is on the Senate mining committee. The charges were dropped after the worker's family settled, but the mine was closed until the company was able to fulfill safety requirements, he said.

Then, for unexplained reasons, the mine reopened in 2008, even though the company had not complied with safety standards, Senator Prokurica said. "That's the question that millions want an answer to," he said.

Vincenot Tobar, who was in charge of risk prevention at the mine from March 2004 until last November, said he resigned in frustration after his many warnings and attempts to address safety problems were largely ignored.

The mine has a checkered past. In 2006 alone, he said, more than 150 people were injured and two people died in accidents, including a truck driver who died in a cave-in. One of his main concerns, he said, was the lack of an escape route that the miners could use in case of an emergency, which is required of every mine in Chile.

"It wasn't just me, but Chilean government inspectors who said many times that the mine didn't have this and needed to have it, but the owners just ignored us," Mr. Tobar said in a telephone interview from Santiago. "They kept telling me they didn't have the money to pay for it."

Despite the concerns, the rescue attempt has energized the entire nation. After a powerful earthquake struck Chile in February, Chileans have rallied around the story of the lost miners. The country owes its prosperity to the rich copper mines in this northern region.

"When the country suffers from a tragedy, everyone unites," said Mr. Rojas, the son of the trapped miner. "And this is a mining country. It is as if this was happening to all of us."

Here the makeshift camp has become a festive place. On Tuesday, two clowns in baggy checkered pants walked the dusty roads with giggling children in tow. Music blared from speakers in the dining tent.

Antenor Barrios grilled some pig on a small grill Tuesday afternoon for the three families he shares a tent with. His son Carlos, 27, is among the miners.

"This was more than a miracle," said Mr. Barrios, 48, of the news that the miners had been found alive. "It's like being reborn again."