Chile miners emerge into the media glare

THE RESCUE of the Chile miners was a remarkable event which rightly captured the attention of millions around the world.

Engineering brilliance was followed by a flawless effort which took just 21 hours and 44 minutes from first miner to last.

Florencio Avalos, aged 31, was the first man to be recovered from the San Jose mine which had been his home for 69 days, yesterday at 00.11 local time.

Almost a day later, shift leader Luis Urzua, 54, was the last man to make the 2300ft ascent at 21.55 local time.

At the surface he was met by Chile's president Sebastian Pinera who had stayed on site to greet each and every miner as they emerged from the ground.

Mr Urzua was also met by thousands of reporters, eager to hear the first words of the man credited with guiding the men through their ordeal by rationing supplies.

This had turned into a major international media event. On site, there were about 2,000 journalists from all over the world, many filling the hours of waiting by asking perplexing questions to the relatives of the miners.

Indeed, when asked about the condition of the men, Chile's mining minister Laurence Golborne replied: "Calmer than the journalists!"

In fairness, many of the miners were happy to play up to the cameras and be serenaded by the national anthem after they stepped out of Fenix 2, the capsule which had provided their route out of the underworld.

Franklin Lobos, a 53-year-old former Chilean international footballer and the 27th miner to be freed, even played keepy-uppies with a ball presented to him by president Pinera.

But, most of all, the miners just wanted to see their families. When the first man, Mr Avalos, emerged from the hole in the ground, his young son burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears. It was the first chapter of what would prove to be a very emotional day.

Of course, all of it was captured for posterity on television. The BBC alone sent 26 people to Copiapo to cover the rescue effort, an exercise which has cost in excess of £100,000.

There are fears that the BBC has been so caught up by a vivid story with an unusually happy ending that it will not be able to cover other forthcoming major events such as Cancún climate summit and the Davos World Economic Forum to its usual standard.

The BBC will defend its spending by pointing out that the high ratings showed this was a story which had captured the public mood at large.

Meanwhile, reporter Tim Willcox emerged with a lot of credit by using his fluent Spanish to empathise genuinely with the locals during his interviews.

His colleague, Matt Frei, did not come across as well as Willcox, filling scenes of jubilation with a mind-numbing commentary when the pictures were already telling the story.

However, the coverage which was most wide of the mark came from the press and its comparisons of the disaster to reality television. This was quite clearly nothing like another mindless Big Brother series.

This was the survival of 33 men against the odds after 69 subterranean days, the first 17 of which passed without any contact with the outside world.

Now there will be plenty of contact to the miners from various media outlets wanting to find out more. Perhaps there might even be a film.

But, as with all groups of people, while some will revel in the publicity, others will prefer to stay out of the limelight.

What should not be forgotten is the fact that they have even got the choice to do either - and that is a credit to an amazing rescue effort.