World applauds as miners in Chile reach the surface

Sometimes the world needs a good story. A real one. I've been fascinated by the whole rescue saga of the 33 miners trapped in a Chilean copper and gold mine and have been following the story with interest.

The drama started when part of the mine collapsed on 5 August, blocking exit routes in the process. Rescue teams sent down listening probes just in case the miners survived. Seventeen days (of hell) passed... until they found a note on 22 August, left by a trapped miner which was attached to a probe, saying "Estamos bien en el refugio los 33" (All 33 of us are well inside the shelter).

Video Tour of Trapped Chilean Miners Refuge



Up to this point the miners rationed themselves to two spoonfuls of tuna, half a cookie and a half-full glass of milk every 48 hours to keep them alive. Once contact was made, the rescue team sent down supplies and water down the borehole, eventually ensuring that the miners received a proper diet.

The rescue

The rescue effort then started in earnest on 18 September, drilling three holes and eventually it was the second hole that reached the miners first at 622m (2040ft). A narrow rescue capsule, built by the navy, was then lowered and started to pull up the miners one by one on 12 October. The order of the miners who were rescued: Strongest and most stable first (in case something went wrong, they'd be able to deal with it mentally), weakest and oldest second (to ensure they get medical attention first) and then the rest with the shift supervisor last.

The rescue was well coordinated, went smoothly, with several countries involved. Some provided machinery, others expertise, like NASA who assisted to determine what the miners would require to survive in isolation. The miners were trapped for 69 days, longer than anyone else in history!

Second Chilean Miner Rescued - Mario Sepulveda



The miners

The miners ranged from age 19 to 63. There were a few interesting characters in the group. Florencio Avalos will always be remembered as the first miner to be rescued. The second miner, Mario Sepulveda, was by far the most jubilant. He sang with other members of the rescue team, embracing everyone around. He was a familiar face since he did most of the video diaries whilst underground. Edison Pena ran six miles every day to keep fit (and stay sane) through dark tunnels, listening to Elvis on his iPod (he has reportedly been invited to visit Graceland). Yonni Barrios was the medic underground; his wife didn't wait for him at the rescue point, his mistress arrived instead. The oldest miner, Mario Gómez, was the spiritual leader and assisted psychologists at the surface. The only foreign miner in the group was Carlos Mamani from Bolivia. Luis Urzua, the shift leader, was credited with instilling discipline in the group from day one, organising the rations that kept them alive. He was the last miner to be rescued.

Media coverage

Apparently one billion viewers tuned in to watch the build up and rescue of the first miner, clearly capturing the attention of the world with all major news channels covering the story. It was convenient to follow to the story online, with many free video feeds covering the story while participating in the discussion while it happened. All you had to do on Twitter was to 'follow' a few journalists, government officials and rescue workers on the scene, who used the opportunity to send Twitter updates from their mobile devices. The family members of the miners set up a base camp called Campo Esperanza (Camp Hope), adjacent to the rescue point in the mine. Most relatives stayed there from day one in support of the miners, waiting with anticipation for the ordeal to be over.

The Chilean president, Sebastian Pinera, and in particular the Chilean mining minister, Laurence Golborne, was present throughout. No rehearsed media conferences with teleprompters, just honest off-the-cuff updates about what was going on. Their approval ratings went through the roof and deservedly so.

Twitter

Twitter has proven, again, to be a useful platform to spread the news quickly and receive recent updates of the drama as it unfolded. At one point I was watching BBC World News and after the rescue capsule was lowered into the mine, the presenter was not sure who the first nominated miner would be to get in the rescue capsule. At the same time I was using Twitter Search and immediately noticed a tweet by the Chilean mining minister where he tweeted the name of the first miner, Florencio Avalos. This was amazing since social media has outdone mainstream media, since it was easier to get actual inside information from the scene. The media world is changing rapidly.

I did a search for "miner" using Twitter Search and at one point it was updating at 15000 tweets every few seconds.

Health

Although everyone is expected to recover from physical illness suffered during their ordeal, the big question is how this whole traumatic experience will affect them psychologically? There will be the initial euphoria of being reunited with loved ones but in the aftermath possible insomnia, restlessness and anxiety could set in. At least they all had a job to do while underground since they effectively had to help the rescue team at the surface carry out their plan. Only time will tell how they will all be affected.

Related links
Live video feed of rescue - Associated Press
Profiles of the miners - BBC News
Capitalism Saved the Miners - WSJ Read more on "World applauds as miners in Chile reach the surface"!

Why you should use Twitter

The bombings in Mumbai in Nov '08 and the crash landing in the Hudson river in Jan '09 were first reported on a social networking service called Twitter before the mainstream media picked it up. This caught my attention and I started reading about Twitter. Initially I thought it was just a silly excuse to send irrelevant messages into cyberspace. Fluffy messages sent by bored people to keep themselves busy. Well, even though I'm sure there are people like that out there, the bottom line is that after some more digging on Twitter, it became clear that it offered so much more! The only way to determine the value of this service was to try it, so I decided to sign up.

Twitter enables its users to send and read other users' updates (called "tweets"), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. You can also send links to website addresses in your message. If the hyperlink is too long, it will shorten it automatically when you send the message, using an automated substitute shorter URL instead.



The first obvious advantage is that it's an easy way to stay in touch with friends and colleagues. A few other advantages:

• Provide comments during live events, on the fly
• Share ideas with people who have a common interest
• Stay on top of current affairs
• Share and receive useful links to articles online
• See what your friends are up to
• Being able to choose whose comments you read
• You can send and read messages from your cell phone
  
• It's fun
• If you're a blogger, there a few other advantages as well.

Following users and a few commands

If you want to receive a friend's Twitter messages in your feed, you must add that person first. It's called "following". To follow a user, visit the user's Twitter profile page e.g. www.twitter.com/GlobetrotterSA (yes, that's me) and simply click on "Follow" under the person's username. Any messages posted by that user will now start appearing in your Twitter feed on the homepage at www.twitter.com (if you're logged in).

If you want to write a reply to someone specifically, then start the message with @, follow it immediately with the person's Twitter username and the message. For example:
@GlobetrotterSA Check out U2's latest album.
would send that message to the user GlobetrotterSA's reply window but everyone who is following GlobetrotterSA will also be able to read the message. It's like addressing someone specifically in a group discussion. You can also send a reply by right-clicking on the message in the feed and choosing the 'reply' option.

If you want to send a direct message to a specific user, without anyone else being able to read it, then you type d username message (e.g. d GlobetrotterSA See you at 8).

There are also other commands you can use when you write your tweet (Twitter message).

Twitter applications and services I use (free)

Twitterfox
Twitterfox is an add-on for Firefox browser users which allows you to send tweets, replies and read all the tweets in your feed in a little popup window in the corner of the browser window, without having to visit the Twitter website. Very practical! I also subscribe to a few news twitter feeds which helps me stay on top of current affairs since I see snippets of the latest news stories throughout the day without having to leave the browser window or tab I'm currently working in.

Twim
If you're using a cell phone with a Symbian operating system (mostly Nokia phones), you can use the Twim freeware Java client to send and read Twitter messages on your cell phone. It works well, provides an easy-to-understand interface and does not use a lot of bandwidth. Now you can tweet on the go! :)
(There are several Twitter clients for cell phones e.g. Twitterfon fir iPhones, just make sure you find the correct client application which is suited for your specific phone brand and model)

Hashtags
Hashtags add additional context to your tweets. If you want to send a tweet about a specific topic that may already be discussed by other users on Twitter, it's useful to add a hashtag to your tweet so other anonymous users (twitters) can easily find the message, if they wanted to. A hashtag is always preceded by #.
Example message: The Springboks rugby union team thrashed the opposition today #Springboks
The hashtag used here is #Springboks and if you search for #Springboks on Twitter, you will find all the related tweets from other users who used the same #hashtag to group the discussion.

Twimailer
Every time you add a user to your Twitter feed, therefore "following" that user, that user receives an automated email to inform that person you're following him/her (this function can be enabled/disabled in the settings under Notifications on the Twitter site). However, this email only mentions the Twitter username and nothing more.

The Twimailer service adds useful information to this email; like the person's profile info, how many users are following them, how many he/she follows and the last ten tweets the person sent. If a lot of people "follow" you on Twitter, this functionality helps in deciding whether you want to follow that person or not, since you hopefully have enough information in front of you to make that decision, without having to visit that user's Twitter feed on the site.

TweetBeep
Keep track of conversations that mention you, anything, with hourly or daily updates. You can also keep track of who's tweeting about your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL. Bloggers may find TweetBeep useful since it will help them determine their blog's popularity.

Twitter Search
This is Twitter's own search function.

Monitter
This website allows you to enter up to three keywords and then displays all the tweets that contain that keyword in realtime. This provides an easy way to follow any topic or news story that is currently being discussed.

Twitscoop
If you want to see which buzzwords are hot on Twitter right now, visit the Twitscoop site.

Other Twitter applications and services

There are a lot of applications and services that enhance the use of Twitter to cater for your specific needs. Here's a few lists:

Big list of Twitter tools
How journalists can master Twitter
Twenty-Six Twitter Tools To Track Tweets
15 Handpicked Twitter Tools

If I come across any other useful Twitter applications that is not mentioned here, I'll update the list. Feel free to share your own Twitter tools/suggestions in the Comments section.

Lastly, you are welcome to follow me on Twitter. :)
Read more on "Why you should use Twitter"!