By Kunal Dutta/Santiago
Until last year, Jose Henriquez was just a drill master working deep in the bowels of the Atacama desert, in one of Chile’s infamous copper mines. The 56-year-old, a quiet veteran of his industry, had spent more than 30 years in squalid conditions below ground.On August 5 last year, his life changed. An explosion in the San Jose Mine near Copiapo trapped Henriquez and 32 of his fellow workers. For the next 70 days they became the focus of hopes and prayers from around the world. From a life of benighted obscurity, Henriquez became a household name, beamed into well-wishers’ homes via television screens around the globe. He became an icon, holding trapped men together during one the most ambitious and dramatic underground rescues in history.The emotional toll of their 69-day ordeal revealed much about the miners’ characters. Henriquez was soon the group’s unofficial “pastor”, conducting daily prayer sessions and bolstering spirits through some of the darkest moments.On October 14, he was reunited with his wife at the surface of the mine, the 24th man to be rescued. A year on from the explosion, he speaks to The Independent on Sunday.“As a miner, you become used to accidents. You sometimes even come close to death. But what transpired a year ago was more than that: it united five continents in prayer and fasting, and irrevocably changed the direction of my life.“The incident itself happened so quickly that I still remember the moment it sunk in that we were actually facing death. Hope of a rescue had begun to wear thin and I had to accept that there was actually no escape. The group had started goading each other with jokes of cannibalism, which started off as humorous but gradually took on a darker significance. Some certainly did consider it, but I doubt it would ever actually have come to that.“When you’re in groups, there are always those who are positive and upbeat and those who will succumb to adversity. But during those times what truly united us was prayer. Praying every single day was a vital support for us.“It kept us together as a team, while faith and trust kept us alive. It is not the miners that are the heroes in this story - it is the sheer will of God that kept us alive and pervaded over the most audacious rescue mission.“I consider myself very lucky, because the accident gave me a sense of spiritual purpose. But it has also been very difficult. My age and health make it hard for me to find work now, and I have been unable to return to the mine since the accident. Many of the others have moved further afield.“Despite everything that happened, we are yet to receive any kind of compensation from the San Esteban Mining Company. A whole year has passed now and we have heard absolutely nothing. Very little seems to have been done to investigate the lack of safety that led to the accident, while the owners and administrators have refused to accept their responsibility.“There was talk of the government giving a pension to those who are too old to work at the mine, but none of that has happened.“Our only real hope was that there might be a film or a book but, despite a lot of talk and news reports, none of this has been confirmed with me, and it’s hard to see anything changing. So far there has been much talk and excitement, but nothing in terms of money or royalties. Luckily, I’ve always been disciplined at saving. “My wife and I have a small business and that’s how we make ends meet. It doesn’t give us much, just enough to survive, which is more important now than ever. But money is getting scarcer. There’s only our lawsuit; we are still waiting to see what will happen with that. But, like many of the other promises, it hasn’t amounted to anything.“I hope that one day all of this finally passes so that we can start a meaningful life again, to go back to work or to find an alternative way to make a living.” — The Independent
*** Translation by Ernesto Priego