Winnipeg Free Press - ONLINE EDITION
‘Whole world is with them’
1972 crash survivors encourage miners’ kin
MARTIN MEJIA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Enlarge Image
Gustavo Zerbino, Uruguayan survivor of a 1972's plane crash in the Chilean Andes (right) embraces Maria Segovia, sister of trapped miner Dario Segovia at the San Jose mine in Copiapo, Chile, Saturday, Sept. 4, 2010. Zerbino and three other survivors of the plane crash have been called to Chile to share their experience with relatives of the trapped miners.
SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — Former rugby players from Uruguay who survived more than two months of isolation in the snowcovered Andes met on Saturday with some of the relatives of 33 trapped miners and urged them to stay strong.
"They will be out soon," said Jose Inciarte, one of the four plane crash survivors visiting the San Jose copper and gold mine in northern Chile. "The whole world is with them."
The men communicated with miners by video, urging them to appreciate the relative good fortune that nobody died in the partial tunnel collapse at the mine on Aug. 5. They also said they were moved by the miners’ fortitude.
"There is little similar between our story and theirs," Inciarte said. "Theirs is more beautiful because they are all alive."
Fellow survivor Gustavo Servino, who waved the Uruguayan flag, said to the extent possible the miners should "enjoy themselves." After speaking with the miners, the men presented a Uruguayan flag, which they said they would leave at the camp as a symbol of Latin American solidarity. "Viva, Chile!" they yelled.
Inciarte and Servino were among 16 Uruguayans who survived a plane crash in the Andean peaks in 1972. They waited 72 days to be rescued and some were forced to eat the flesh of friends killed in the crash to stay alive. Their story inspired the book and movie Alive.
"They fought so hard for their lives," Maria Segovia, sister of trapped miner Dario Segovia, said as she hugged some of the visitors.
"Seeing them makes my heart so happy."
Just a handful of miners’ relatives received the Uruguayans; many come and go as rescuers pursue what could be a months-long process of digging a tunnel big enough to extract the miners.
— The Associated Press
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