The rescue, as of 3pm ET (updated to 3:35pm)

Florencio Avalos greets his family after emerging from the Fenix 2 capsule in which each of the rescued miners has ascended the near half-mile from the mine in which they were trapped.

"We made a promise to never surrender, and we kept it."

-- Chilean President Sebastián Piñera

by Ken

I don't know about you, but apart from whatever occasional dozing may have occurred, I had about 45 minutes till my alarm clock would go off at the time I finally packed it in and stopped watching the Chilean mine rescue -- until, er, "morning." I don't know what exactly I was watching, or why, but I couldn't tear myself away.

I don't mean that I literally didn't know what I was watching. Of course I did. It was the long, methodically, and gruelingly planned start of the extraction of the miners after their 68-day captivity nearly half a mile below ground. What I mean, though, is what the hell was there to watch?

Maybe once every 50 minutes or so, the Fenix 2 capsule -- or cage, as the rescue people seemed always to refer to it -- emerged from the painstakingly excavated and steel-reinforced hole that leads to the mine nearly a half-mile below, and in due time, voilà!, another miner emerges from his 15 minute-or-so ascent in the 21-inch-wide container, barely enough to contain a man. (As we were reminded constantly, some of the men had had to slim down -- during the long preparation period made necessary by the time needed to dig the evacuation tunnel -- to be assured of fitting in the thing.) Among the orange-jumpsuited crewpeople was none other than President Sebastián Piñera, smiling and hugging everyone within hugging range for as long as he held out. I didn't notice when he finally gave out and disappeared, but he was there a long time.

President Piñera with budding superstar "Super Mario" Sepulveda

By the time each miner emerges, we know not only who it is but quite a lot about him and what kind of physical and mental shape he's in, thanks to the extensive contact between the trapped miners and the outside world while they were waiting for the rescue tunnel to be dug. In most cases, in fact, we've seen the newly emerged miner down in the mine clambering into the cage, because there's a camera down there providing a constant video feed, which has been one of the wonders of the whole thing: watching live, as it happens, a rescue operation for which no one seems able to think of an equal precedent.

The video feed has been provided entirely by the Chilean government, which has done an outstanding job, more focused and coherent than I would have expected from a network TV director. But still, it's not as if there's much to watch. Oh, CNN tried to tart it up with a steady stream of yammering -- some of it actually interesting, much of it embarrassing.

It's all worked out so well that it's easy to forget just how dangerous this escape plan, through a tunnel that's far from straight and has virtually no extra clearance for the escape "cage," seemed going in. No one could be sure it would even work! A key factor in determining the order of evacuation was uncertainty as to what the first few passengers would encounter on the corkscrew-style journey up. Even though, as we were told repeatedly, inside the capsule the passenger has his vitals monitored and is in constant contact with the topside, in order to ensure that the early travelers would be physically up to, well, whatever they might need to be up to, it was decided that Nos. 1-5 would be drawn from the fittest of the group, followed then by the group with the most serious health concerns. In the event, the operation has proceeded so smoothly that it soon came to seem routine! Amazing!

And I'm not the only one who was amazed by the condition of the men as they emerged from Fenix 2. (Among the many extreme precautions taken was the manufacture of not one but two capsules. Fenix 1 is on standby, and will remain so as long as Fenix 2, on which extensive maintenance is performed, continues to be operable. I assume the logic is that once they press the backup into service, they no longer have a backup.) The men look unbelievably fit and well. (The men requested shampoo and shaving equipment to prepare themselves for their return to the outside world.) Each is soon laid on a gurney to proceed to the lengthy process of medical observation planned for all the returnees.

I don't take anything for granted, and I don't want to jinx it. As I write, 19 of the 33 miners have been brought up, which still leaves a long way to go. But it's actually running ahead of schedule! The minister of mining estimated in a press conference earlier this afternoon that the operation may be completed today, well ahead of schedule. He explained that the crews manning the upper and lower ends of the shuttle have become steadily more proficient at their tasks -- though without sacrificing safety, which apparently has been a paramount concern. Built into the schedule, for example, was ample time for regular maintenance of the capsule. One of the fascinations of watching has been seeing how this incredibly complex plan, making use of technology and knowhow from all around the world, has come together. Col. Hannibal Smith would have approved.

Even though, as I say, 19 miners have been rescued as of the time of writing (shortly before 3pm ET), we're not even halfway through the operation, proceeding slowly and methodically. There would be no way to speed it up significantly anyhow, but you have to admire the time taken to the ticking cnn.com clock shows 14 "underground" and 19 "rescued," which is only technically correct, by virtue of the fact that the display is headed "Chilean Miner Rescue." Which is --

ONE THING THAT MAKES ME CRAZY . . .

Yes, there were 33 trapped miners to be brought up, but the total number of men to be extracted isn't 33 but, ultimately, 39, counting the rescue workers sent down to handle the bottom end of the shuttle operation. As of the minister of mining's press conference, c1:15pm ET, there were five, with a sixth scheduled to be sent down later, to provide the mine crew with more opportunity for rest. Hey, these guys have to be brought up too. The minister made clear that that last man down will be the last man up -- and it occurs to you that he's going to have to load himself into the capsule and get himself hooked up and make sure the thing is oriented correctly to ascend properly into the tunnel (not to mention turning off the lights, or doing whatever the protocol calls for the last man out to do), all without assistance.

All of the crew people have performed heroically, but perhaps none as much so as the ones who allowed themselves to be shuttled down into that cave where the 33 miners were imprisoned those 68 days. I don't know, maybe it's just me -- possibly a hypersensitivity hangover from the memory of 9/11 and all those NYC firefighters rushing into the World Trade Center towers. Some of the TV people are careful to remember that there are more than 33 men who have to be gotten out. (Now we know the total is going to be 39.) That's appreciated. What the hell is wrong with the other dopes?

There will be plenty of time to talk about the cost of this whole operation, and where it fits into the grand scheme of the socioeconomic order. For now, I'm as dumbfounded as anybody.


RESCUE UPDATE: UP TO 21 AS OF 3:35PM ET

With Johnny Barrios safely returned, it's on to No. 22, Samuel Avalos, who I believe is the brother of Florencio (pictured above). I know one of the already-rescued miners had a brother still down below.

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