CNN is currently offering live streaming video of the rescue of the 33 trapped Chilean miners. It’s a bit surreal, to say the least–but then, there’s very little about this whole story that isn’t surreal, I suppose. The miners have managed to survive underground for 69 days. They survived for weeks by rationing food, until a rescue team was able to lower down everything from food to medicine to movies.
Now, more than two months later, the rescue is finally underway. For safety’s sake, the rescuers are taking things slowly, pulling the miners up the 2,000 feet drop, one a time. At last count, 13 of the miners have been rescued in the 11 and a half hours since rescue began, much to the relief of all of the family members present.
The footage, while slow, is pretty engrossing, as the miners emerge, one by one, to smiles, applause, and hugs.