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Laurence Golborne was working in relative obscurity as Chile's mining minister in August 2010 when a mineshaft collapse thousands of feet below ground in a remote corner of that country catapulted him into the international spotlight.

The subsequent 69-day operation that Golborne led to rescue 33 trapped miners made him famous around the world.

It also provided "a leadership lesson for the ages," Harvard University President Drew Faust said Monday in welcoming Golborne, now minister of public works, as he spoke on public policy, leadership, and crisis management at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum at Harvard Kennedy School.

Faust met Golborne during an official visit to Chile with Harvard Kennedy School Dean David T. Ellwood last spring. She said she knew then that Golborne had to come to Harvard to share his story.

But, as Golborne reminded the audience, it was a story that could have well ended differently.

"Essentially, a crisis happens when all the rules fail," Golborne told the audience. Accompanied by a slideshow, with vivid images of the rescue operation, Golborne reminded the audience that crisis and government are a potential mismatch.

The usual procedures of government, which requires slow, deliberate action, can be incompatible with a situation that is unexpected, is unique, requires urgent response, and has no textbook answers.

"This is the scenario in which leadership takes on a complementary role," Golborne said.

Golborne said the ability to manage a lot of pressure was key over the first 17 days, during which the rescuers faced disappointment and frustration. The teams Golborne assembled had to deal with family members, the media, and the vast technical difficulties of the rescue itself. Then came the famous note, attached to a drill that had been used to reach the trapped miners, announcing that they were alive and well.

"Many, many things had to go right for those 33 miners to be rescued, and those things did go right," said Herman "Dutch" Leonard, Baker Professor of Public Management at the Kennedy School and an authority on crisis management, who introduced Golborne. "It's a huge credit to the people involved, who in completely novel circumstances managed to learn their way forward into a whole new paradigm for mine rescue."

Why did the rescue mission succeed? There were three key elements, Golborne said: team building, hard work, and motivation; the need to risk failure in order to succeed; and an understanding that complex problems have no simple solutions.

Asked by an audience member why he had entered, and stayed, in the public sector, Golborne remembered that he was hesitant when he was first asked to join President Sebastian Pinera's government. He said his wife persuaded him.

"You always say that someone has to do something, you always say that our country needs a lot of things," his wife told him. "Well, who is going to do it? Why don't you go to help?"

"I have to confess that every day I feel like I made the best decision of my life," he said.

The event marked the beginning of Harvard Kennedy School's annual Public Service Week. That will serve as the kickoff for Harvard's Global Month of Service, which begins April 1.

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Laurence Golborne was working in relative obscurity as Chile's mining minister in August 2010 when a mineshaft collapse thousands of feet below ground in a remote corner of that country catapulted him into the international spotlight. The subsequent 69-day operation that Golborne led to rescue 33 trapped miners made him famous around the world.

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Mine Ordeal Spurs Calls For Tougher Safety Rules

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Amid the joy at the rescue of the trapped Chilean miners, there are concerted efforts to make sure the kind of accident that led to their 69-day ordeal doesn’t happen again. Safety groups say Chile should adopt international standards for mines. The San Jose Mine was operating despite repeated vio…

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An ICEM report from November 2010 told how inexperienced miners with no training detonated explosives on their first day of work inside the Los Reyes copper mine in northern Chile, killing 2. The incident happened only three weeks after the fabled rescue of 33 copper miners and only 70 kilometres from the San José mine in Chile's Region II.

Now some rather startling facts have surfaced courtesy of an expose on Chile's mine safety practices in the newspaper El Mercurio. As reported originally, the owner of the company, a Mexican national named Germán Zayas Bazán, fled Chile and within six hours of the 8 November explosion landed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a flight from Chile.

Germán Bazán was in Chile on a tourist visit. His whereabouts now are unknown and there has been no attempt to extradite him by Chile's government, reportedly because the mine accident is still under investigation.

What is known is that on 15 September 2010, the Los Reyes mine was ordered by the National Service of Geology and Mining (SERNAGEOMIN) inactive. But Bazán somehow managed to get local authorities to reverse the order. At the same time, Bazán was openly advertising in Copiapó and elsewhere, seeking people to work long shifts for high pay, no qualifications required.

The deadly incident happened on the first day of work for three workers, ages 37, 26, and 21, were inside the mine. None had license to handle dynamite, they were without hard hats and mining lights, and the mine was without a fixed telephone line. El Mercurio reported that after the blast, Bazán drove the 21-year-old worker - who lost an eye from an exploding stone - to a hospital and then fled to the Copiapó airport.

In new light of safety ills that beset Chile's mine industry, the SERNAGEOMIN inspector charged with overseeing the mine's official closure was sacked and the regional director then resigned. Sill in question is how Bazán managed to acquire a deal to sell copper and other metals to Empresa Nacional de Mineria (Enami), a state-owned firm that processes and sells metals.

Separately from Los Reyes, SERNAGEOMIN has acknowledged that only 7%, or 27 of 394 small-scale mines in Region II are operating legally. Currently there is legislation drafted in Chile to reform SERNAGEOMIN. Part of the bill would institute a mining regulator that would be charged with overseeing exploration and mine development plans. The new regulator will have oversight on mine safety too.

In January, the Chile Mining and Energy Ministry did approve a 62% increase in the agency's funding, which is expected to raise the number of mine safety inspectors across the country from 18 to 45. But with over 4,000 mining operations, that number is far too low and it is still too early to judge the effect revisions in the proposed legislation will have.

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2010 Chile Copper Mine Blast Reveals Regulation Gaps

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An ICEM report from November 2010 told how inexperienced miners with no training detonated explosives on their first day of work inside the Los Reyes copper mine in northern Chile, killing 2. The incident happened only three weeks after the fabled rescue of 33 copper miners and only 70 kilometres from the San José mine in Chile's Region II.

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Chile mine rescuers. Photo by Hugo Infante/Government of Chile

The complicated mission to save 33 men from the collapsed San Jose mine near Copiapo, Chile, which ended successfully Wednesday night, will cost an estimated $10 million to $20 million, according to Chilean President Sebastian Pinera.

"Every peso was well spent," he said.

A third of the cost will be covered by private donations with the rest coming from Codelco, the state-owned copper company that led the rescue effort, and the government itself, reported the Associated Press.

Some of the help was donated, such as technical assistance from other mining companies and a four-person NASA team, drinks from commercial companies, and the Oakley sunglasses each miner wore to readjust to bright light, which had an estimated retail price tag of $450.

The miners will get to keep the sunglasses as well as other gifts, which reportedly include new iPods, $10,000 each from a local businessman, and trips to see soccer games, along with proceeds from book deals. One miner, Edison Pena, an Elvis fan, was offered a free trip to Graceland in Memphis.

Media organizations also spent a pretty penny. BBC, which provided live 24-hour coverage of the mine saga, reportedly spent more than 100,000 British pounds (about US$158,000), which could squeeze coverage of other events including the Cancun climate summit and Oscars.

In all, more than 1,000 journalists from 40 countries participated in the on-site wall-to-wall coverage.

But beyond the dollar cost, some analysts say the positive light on Chile is invaluable.

"If you have to have the spotlight on you, this is not a bad way to do it," Beatriz Manz, a professor of Chicano/Latino studies at the University of California at Berkeley, told the NewsHour. "Chileans know that. They feel no one knows who they are, what the country is beyond the bottles of wine."

Francisco Javier Diaz, a former presidential adviser to Pinera's predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, and now senior fellow at the think tank Cieplan, said the mine incident should lead to more investment in Chile's working class and working conditions.

"This case shows a very good example of a mine earning a lot of money, yet they didn't have stairs for an emergency. Much more than laws and supervision, it's something about ethics," he said.

Pinera himself said from the site of the mine rescue that he hopes from now on, when people hear the word Chile, "they will not remember the coup d'etat or the dictatorship, they will remember what we've done (here), all the Chileans together."
Watch for more on what's next for Chile on Thursday's NewsHour. Reporter-producer Robert Zeliger contributed to this report.

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Chile mine rescuers. Photo by Hugo Infante/Government of Chile The complicated mission to save 33 men from the collapsed San Jose mine near Copiapo, Chile, which ended successfully Wednesday night, will cost an estimated $10 million to $20 million, according to Chilean President Sebastian Pinera. "Every peso was well spent," he said.

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One of the myths surrounding the 33 miners who were so dramatically rescued after being trapped for 69 days deep inside a Chilean copper mine is that they're all millionaires and no longer need to work.

The truth: nearly half the men have been unemployed since their mine collapsed one year ago Friday, and just one, the flamboyant Mario Sepulveda, has managed to live well off the fame. Most have signed up to give motivational speeches. Four, so far, have gone back underground to pound rock for a living.

"Los 33" have filed negligence lawsuits demanding $10 million from the bankrupt mine's owners and $17 million from the government for failing to enforce safety regulations, but years remain before any payout.

Despite rumors that miners got rich off media interviews, most got only paid trips, hotel stays and the kinds of gifts that don't put food on tables.

Neither did they profit from the books written about them so far. Only recently did they finally reach a deal with a Hollywood agent for an authorized book and movie, but they have yet to see any money from that, either.

The 33 miners sold the rights to their story to producer Mike Medavoy, whose films include "Shutter Island" and "Black Swan." "Motorcycle Diaries" screenwriter Jose Rivera is set to write the script.

A year after they were buried alive by a mine collapse a half-mile below the surface, the remarkable unity that many credited with helping them survive has fallen victim to misunderstandings over fame and money. Only some plan to join Chile's president, Sebastian Pinera, in Copiapo and at the San Jose Mine on Friday for an anniversary mass and museum inauguration. Sepulveda is among those who want no part of the ceremonies.

All have been hoping that Pinera announce lifelong pensions of about $430 a month for the 33. The government seems willing to pay, but the exact amount has been under negotiation for some time now, several miners told The Associated Press.

Many have gotten by until now on the philanthropy of an eccentric millionaire and Chilean mine owner, Leonardo Farkas, who wrote them checks for 5 million pesos (about $10,950), threw them a lavish party and gave each a motorcycle. Farkas then doubled the amount for a miner whose baby was born while he was trapped down below, and another who skipped his baby's birth to attend the party.

Facing critics
Shift foreman Luis Urzua, who kept the men unified when nearly all hope was lost, told the AP that he's saddened by critics of the miners' lawsuits, who say they should simply be grateful they were rescued.

"We're very content, very grateful to the government and the president for what they did. We filed this lawsuit so that people understand that everyone has the right to sue when things aren't being done correctly," Urzua said.

Many Chileans don't distinguish between government agencies and the administration of Pinera, which spent as much as $20 million on the rescue only to see his approval ratings drop from 60 percent at their peak to 30 percent today, the lowest of any Chilean president since the nation recovered its democracy in 1990, according to Adimark's monthly tracking poll.

Housewife Cecilia Cruz, for example, told the AP that "the miners are a bunch of ingrates, after all the money the government spent rescuing them."

Pinera has been beset by striking miners, students, teachers, earthquake and tsunami survivors, Mapuche Indians and others marching against his government. While in Copiapo on Friday, he'll also likely face the 240 other San Jose Mine workers who escaped the collapse only to lose their jobs when the mine closed. Many are still unemployed and have only received 40 percent of their severances.

The government has resisted calls to make payments on behalf of the bankrupt mining company, fearful of a precedent that could sap profits from the entire industry, Chile's main revenue source. But the state-owned National Mining Company did lend $1.2 million this week to pay the mine owners' debts to the workers.

Only 19 of the 33 rescued men would see some of this money - the others won't get anything because they worked for outside contractors, or have had most of their salaries paid by the state while on medical leave.

Urzua is among the unemployed. Rather than return to mining, he's among the 25 miners who have signed up to give motivational speeches, and credited a university professor, Ricardo Munoz, for helping them polish their deliveries. "He's one of the few who is working with us without trying to profit from it," Urzua said. "There are a lot of people who have made off handsomely."

One-time heroes
The miners were celebrated as heroes worldwide for surviving so long in the dark, hot, wet depths of a mountain weakened by more than a century of mining, with tons of rock above them that was constantly shifting and threatening to bury them forever. Before anyone knew that they had survived the Aug. 15, 2010, collapse, the 33 stretched an extremely meager store of emergency food for 17 days, eating tiny capfuls of tuna fish and sips of outdated milk.

Pinera staked his presidency on their rescue. He formed an expert team and rushed to the scene, offering any resources necessary to bring them out alive. When they were finally pulled out, the world's media converged on the remote desert hilltop, broadcasting Chile's success story to a global audience hungry for good news.

The 33 were deluged with invitations to all-expenses-paid television appearances and vacations to exotic destinations. A few still travel to tell their stories.

But most remain have run out of money and are back to scratching out livings in the dusty, barren, working-class neighborhoods and shantytowns that ring the desert city of Copiapo.

The El Mercurio newspaper reported that 15 are unemployed; seven regularly give motivational speeches; three hawk fruit and vegetables in the street, two have small grocery stores and four have returned underground to pound rock for copper and gold. Others are unable to work due to continuing psychological symptoms, and receive a fraction of their former salaries as government medical payments.

Two - Claudio Yanez and Pedro Cortez - said they've had to sell their motorcycles for food. Franklin Lobos, who had tasted fame earlier in life as a professional football player, is coaching in the city's youth leagues, but told Chile's Football Channel he would prefer the anonymity of his life as a mine driver.

Bolivian Carlos Mamami, the only foreigner among the 33, is out of money after his father-in-law tried to charge $33,000 per interview. Edison Pena, who ran in the New York marathon, appeared on U.S. talk shows and is known for his love of Elvis Presley, recently was invited to sing like his idol in Canada, but he confessed to El Mercurio that it has been hard to keep the celebrity-worship going. His wife told the paper that their life "is as dark as the mine was."

Omar Reygadas, 56, told The AP he's focusing on motivational speeches for now, "to show the meaning of teamwork, power and faith."

But he said nightmares still keep him up. "I try to read, to tire myself out so that I can sleep well," he said. "But if I'm alone in a closed space, it still makes me anxious - I have to get out and find someone to talk with or distract myself with something."

Sepulveda stood out among the miners by narrating their underground videos, and thrilled viewers worldwide with his ecstatic behavior when he reached the surface. Since then, he has formed a business consulting service, hired a U.S. public relations agent, and filled his calendar with trips around Chile and beyond.

Sepulveda traveled to Washington, D.C., with Chilean Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno for Wednesday's inauguration of a display about the rescue at the Smithsonian Institution.

He used the opportunity to defend the miners' lawsuits.

"Things should be done properly. If a worker commits a error of this calamity, the company isn't going to think twice" about finding those responsible, Sepulveda said.

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Reality tarnishes myth of Chile's 33 rescued miners

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One of the myths surrounding the 33 miners who were so dramatically rescued after being trapped for 69 days deep inside a Chilean copper mine is that they're all millionaires and no longer need to work.

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Chile mine rescue of 2010, rescue of 33 workers from the San Jose gold and copper mine on October 13, 2010, 69 days after the mine's collapse on August 5. The mine, owned by the San Esteban Primera Mining Company, was located in the Atacama Desert of Chile, approximately 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the town of Copiapó and approximately 500 miles (800 km) north of Santiago.

The collapse

At approximately 2:00 pm a cave-in occurred at the San Jose mine following warnings of disturbances earlier in the day. The mine, opened in 1889, had been the site of numerous earlier accidents, including an explosion in 2007 that killed three miners. Little was done to improve conditions before the mine was reauthorized for continued excavation by Chile's National Geology and Mining Service (Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería; Sernageomin) in 2008. Inside the mine at the time of the collapse were 33 workers; 32 were Chilean and one was Bolivian. Most were miners, though several subcontracted workers were also trapped. The mine, which spiraled into the depths of a mountain, was approximately 2,625 feet (800 metres) deep.

Search for survivors

A local emergency squad attempted a rescue that night but was unsuccessful. Following this initial failure, the Chilean government ordered Codelco, the state-owned mining company, to coordinate the rescue effort. On August 7 a second collapse occurred, blocking access to ventilation shafts that might have served as a point of egress for the men had ladders been in place as stipulated by safety regulations. The next day rescue workers began drilling exploratory holes through which they sent listening probes in an attempt to discern signs of life.

The search was further complicated by outdated maps of the mine's structure. However, on August 22, one of the approximately 30 probes detected tapping, and, when it was drawn to the surface, a note reading "Estamos bien en el refugio los 33" ("All 33 of us are all right in the shelter") was attached. Thereafter the men were known as "los 33." A video feed threaded through the small drill hole later confirmed that they were unharmed. The point at which the men were trapped was approximately 2,300 feet (700 metres) from the surface.

Life underground

During the 17-day period the men spent without contact with the surface, they subsisted on a supply of emergency rations intended to last 2 days, taking meals only once every other day. Water was obtained from a spring and from radiators. Some of the men developed fungal infections due to the high humidity and 95 °F (35 °C) heat, and some suffered eye and respiratory problems, but the miners were otherwise unscathed.

By August 23 nutrient gel, water, and communication devices had been fed through the holes to the men. In order to ensure the survival of the workers until they could be extracted, a cadre of experts-ranging from mental health specialists to NASA scientists-was brought to the site, joining an encampment of worried family and friends. As the days progressed, solid food was passed through the channel, as were first aid supplies, exercise routines, and lighting devices.

Rescue

In the meantime, plans for recovering the men continued. Three separate drilling rigs were brought to the site. Two were raise-bore machines, which drill a small hole and then widen it, and one was a piece of equipment normally used in oil and gas prospecting that could drill one wide hole. One raise-borer was American-owned and -operated. The other two machines were Canadian-owned and -operated, with some Chilean assistance. The first hole, dubbed Plan A, was begun on August 30 using one of the raise-bore drills. On September 5, Plan B was initiated using the second raise-borer. Work on Plan C, using the oil drill, started on September 19. The trapped workers split into three groups, each of which worked an 8-hour shift to remove the debris caused by the drilling and to reinforce the walls of the mine.

Though the men were initially expected to remain trapped until December, on October 9 the Plan B drill finally completed a tunnel connecting to an accessible chamber. Two days later the top 295 feet (90 metres) of the 2,050-foot (625-metre) shaft had been lined with metal tubing in preparation for the ascent of the men in a specially designed metal capsule. Late on the night of October 12 a rescue worker was lowered into the mine inside the capsule. Just after midnight the first worker was drawn to the surface. By that evening the last man, a shift supervisor who had organized the men during their time underground, had been rescued. Chilean Pres. Sebastián Piñera greeted the men as they reached the surface and, when the last had emerged from the capsule, led the assembled crowd-whose tent settlement had been dubbed Campamento Esperanza, or Camp Hope-in singing the Chilean national anthem. The carefully choreographed denouement-characterized by some observers as political theatre-was documented by hundreds of journalists from around the world.

Because the San Esteban Primera Mining Company did not have the resources or funds to engineer the rescue, the bulk of the $20 million cost was shouldered by the Chilean government and its companies. In the wake of their rescue, the men were feted both at home and abroad. They were guaranteed six months of health care and flown to international destinations for media appearances and sightseeing tours. Some appeared as motivational speakers. However, as the initial flood of offers and attention died down, the toll the experience had taken on the miners and their families became apparent. Many experienced difficulty in coping with the aftereffects of the trauma, and some family members expressed fears that the miners had been irrevocably changed by the experience. Some of the men began abusing alcohol and drugs. Government-subsidized mental health care was revoked for several men after they missed appointments in order to travel.

In March 2011 a congressional commission placed blame for the collapse on the owners of the mine and on Sernageomin. All but two of the miners filed a collective lawsuit against the government in July of that year, asking for more than half a million dollars each. The owners of the straitened mining company agreed to reimburse the government for roughly a quarter of the rescue costs in March 2012. Prosecutors-who had been investigating the case since 2010-ruled in August 2013 that neither Sernageomin nor the owners of the mine bore any criminal responsibility for the accident, reducing the miners' legal recourse to civil suits.
Richard Pallardy

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Chile mine rescue of 2010 | Description & Facts

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Chile mine rescue of 2010, rescue of 33 workers from the San Jose gold and copper mine on October 13, 2010, 69 days after the mine's collapse on August 5. The mine was located in the Atacama Desert of Chile, approximately 500 miles (800 km) north of Santiago.

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The moment the white torpedo-shaped container finally surfaced, having been slowly pulled up the half-mile-deep rescue tunnel, people worldwide felt relief-and wonder. It was October 13, 2010, a time otherwise notable for troubling headlines and economic meltdowns, and the sight was as inspiring to some as the great NASA rocket launches of decades ago. After 69 days trapped deep in Chile's San José copper mine, 33 miners, hauled from the depths one at a time, stepped out of the tiny capsule and into the embrace of a cheering world.

Engineers had named the custom-made capsule the Fenix 2; its twin, the Fenix 1, which the rescuers used to test the technology at the mine site, is the centerpiece of the exhibition "Against All Odds: Rescue at the Chilean Mine," at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). The exhibition, which opened just before the first anniversary of the mine collapse and will remain until May, includes other relics of the operation and some mementos, such as the Bible the miners prayed with daily and the watch they used to mark the days underground. But the Fenix 1, thirteen feet tall and only 21 inches in diameter, is the most vivid reminder of just how treacherous and unlikely the rescue really was.

Looking at the capsule, Sorena Sorensen, the curator of the show and a geologist, marvels at the miners' mental resolve in overwhelmingly bleak circumstances. "These guys were tough cookies," she says.

The story of the disaster and rescue, Sorensen says, starts with Chile's geologic history. The country is located where the Pacific and Nazca plates slide under South America, pushing seawater-laden rock to hotter depths and, over millions of years, generating rich deposits of copper ore. "Copper has been mined in Chile since about 500 B.C. The Incas were mining it," says Sorensen. "The San José mine began producing copper-that is to say, someone found it and began to mine it-in the late 1800s."

On August 5, 2010, a cave-in blocked the mine's main shaft in two locations. Rescuers scrambled to drill exploratory holes to locate the men. "They were prospecting for people, and the boreholes were tiny," Sorensen says, pointing to a 13-inch-wide drill bit on display. "It's like taking a toothpick and putting it through a square yard of sandstone." Improbably, on August 22, on the eighth exploratory drill, the bit returned to the surface with a note taped to it-"We are well in the shelter, the 33."

The Chilean government called in NASA's Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) to help with the rescue. The center was established after the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters and has worked on a range of projects worldwide, from submarine rescues to oil spills. "We can be sent somewhere on a moment's notice," says NESC engineer Michael Aguilar. "It's kind of like 'Mission: Impossible.' You've got a mission, and you put a team together."

The engineers equipped the rescue capsule with audio and video links to communicate with each miner during the 10- to 15-minute ascent, probes to check heart rate and other functions, and an emergency oxygen supply. "We thought, 'What if he gets stuck?' so it has a trapdoor that can drop out the bottom and a rope coming down," Aguilar says.

The rescuers "tested the Fenix 1, putting it down into the hole many times," says Nicolas Bar, the cultural attaché at the Chilean Embassy, who arranged for the capsule to come to the museum. "Then they decided to use the Fenix 2 for the rescue."

"The extras were built for the same reason that NASA builds duplicates of the stuff that is going out into space," Sorensen says. "If it broke in some way, and you have its exact duplicate at the surface, you could look at it and see what the miners are telling you about what is going on."

On the day of the extraction, the miners were strapped into the Fenix and hoisted upward. As each surfaced, spectators grew more and more elated. When crew foreman Luis Urzúa emerged, completing the rescue of all the miners, the crowd of onlookers cheered, and it is safe to say that millions worldwide viewing the operation on TV did, too.

"Seeing the capsule here is very moving for me," says Bar. "This was a collaborative effort. It's not just a national story from Chile, but an international story."

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The Capsule That Saved the Chilean Miners

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The moment the white torpedo-shaped container finally surfaced, having been slowly pulled up the half-mile-deep rescue tunnel, people worldwide felt relief-and wonder. It was October 13, 2010, a time otherwise notable for troubling headlines and economic meltdowns, and the sight was as inspiring to some as the great NASA rocket launches of decades ago.