A police officer embraces a relative of trapped miners after it was announced that a drill had reached the cave where the miners are at the San Jose Mine near Copiapo in Chile.

A DRILLING rig punched through to the underground purgatory where 33 miners have been trapped for 66 agonizing days under the Chilean desert, raising cheers, tears and hopes yesterday.

Relatives waiting at "Camp Hope" on the surface waved Chilean flags and shouted with joy as word spread of the breakthrough, and one man frantically rang a bell even before a siren sounded to officiallyconfirm that the escape shaft had reached the miners. They are still several days away from rescue. Engineers must first check the shaft and decide whether to reinforce it before pulling them to the surface.

Overwhelming

"We feel an enormous happiness, now that I'm going to have my brother," said Darwin Contreras, whose brother Pedro, a 26-year-old heavy machine operator, is stuck down below. "When the siren rang out, it was overwhelming. Now we just have to wait for them to get out, just a little bit longer now."

The "Plan B" drill won a three-way race against two other drills to carve a hole wide enough for an escape capsule to pull the miners out one by one.

While "Plan A" and "Plan C" stalled after repeatedly veering off course, the "Plan B" drill reached the miners at a point 622 meters below the surface at 8:05am, after 33 days of drilling.

Jeff Hart of Denver, Colorado, operated the drill, and said the rescue crew cheered when the T130 broke through.

"There is nothing more important than saving, possibly saving, 33 lives. There's no more important job than that," Hart said. "We've done our part, now it's up to them to get the rest of the way out."

The milestone thrilled Chileans, who see the rescue drama as a test of the nation's character and pride, and eased some anxiety among the miners' families.

But now comes a difficult judgment call. Rescuers must decide whether it's more risky to pull the miners through unreinforced rock, or to insert tons of steel pipe into the shaft to protect the miners on their way up.

"This is an important achievement," Mining Minister Laurence Golborne said, "but we still haven't rescued anybody. This rescue won't be over until the last person below leaves this mine."

President Sebastian Pinera promised "to do everything humanly possible" to keep the miners safe, and as the drill was nearing the breakthrough, he said he had kept his promise.

Those in charge of the rescue say the decision on how to proceed next will be a purelytechnical one. But everyone involved knows how terrible it would be if a miner gets stuck for reasons that might have been avoided.

Steel pipe would prevent stones from falling and potentially jamming the capsule, but it wouldn't save a miner if the mine suffered another major collapse, and might itself provoke a disastrous setback, Golborne said.

"You would have to put through a 600 meter hole a lot of pipes that weigh more than 150 tons," he said. "And this structure can be set in a position that also could block the movement of the Phoenix (escape capsule). It's not a decision easy to make."

If engineers determine the shaft is able to let the capsule pass without significant obstacles, rescuers plan to start pulling the men out as early as Tuesday.

• relative [´relətiv] a.有关系的 n.亲属 (初中英语单词)
• yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
• waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
• confirm [kən´fə:m] vt.证实；认可；加强 (初中英语单词)
• rescue [´reskju:] vt.&n.救援；挽救 (初中英语单词)
• enormous [i´nɔ:məs] a.巨大地，很，极 (初中英语单词)
• operator [´ɔpəreitə] n.操作者；接线员 (初中英语单词)
• character [´kæriktə] n.特性；性质；人物；字 (初中英语单词)
• anxiety [æŋ´zaiəti] n.挂念；渴望；焦虑的事 (初中英语单词)
• minister [´ministə] n.部长；大臣 v.伺候 (初中英语单词)
• charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
• purely [´pjuəli] ad.仅仅；简单地 (初中英语单词)
• everyone [´evriwʌn] pron.=everybody 每人 (初中英语单词)
• structure [´strʌktʃə] n.结构，构造；组织 (初中英语单词)
• movement [´mu:vmənt] n.活动；运动；动作 (初中英语单词)
• underground [,ʌndə´graund] ad.&a.地下(的) (高中英语单词)
• reinforce [,ri:in´fɔ:s] vt.增援 n.加固物 (高中英语单词)
• colorado [,kɔlə´rɑ:dəu] n.科罗拉多(州) (高中英语单词)
• insert [in´sə:t, ´insə:t] vt.插入；夹入 n.插入物 (高中英语单词)
• mining [´mainiŋ] n.采矿；矿业 (高中英语单词)
• technical [´teknikəl] a.技术的；专门性的 (高中英语单词)
• collapse [kə´læps] vi.&n.崩溃；病倒；衰败 (高中英语单词)
• provoke [prə´vəuk] vt.挑拨；煽动；引起 (高中英语单词)
• significant [sig´nifikənt] a.重要的；意义重大的 (高中英语单词)
• officially [ə´fiʃəli] ad.以职员身份；正式 (英语四级单词)
• overwhelming [,əuvə´welmiŋ] a.压倒的；势不可挡的 (英语四级单词)
• repeatedly [ri´pi:tidli] ad.反复地；再三地 (英语四级单词)
• denver [´denvə] n.丹佛(市) (英语四级单词)
• disastrous [di´zɑ:strəs] a.招致灾祸的；不幸的 (英语四级单词)
• frantically [´fræntikəli] ad.狂暴地，疯狂地 (英语六级单词)