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Author Topic: Trapped Chilean miners: How did a former footballing hero come to be one of the  (Read 1806 times)

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Offline asylumseeker

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Trapped Chilean miners: How did a former footballing hero come to be one of the 33?

Franklin Lobos was a legend of Chilean football. Dubbed el Mortero Magico (the magic mortar) for his thunderous long-distance free-kicks, the midfielder was a stalwart of first division side Cobresal throughout the 1980s. Asked for his secret, Lobos explained simply: "I have a different way of kicking the ball."

Yet even during those days as a professional footballer, Lobos was never far from the dangerous world of the working miner. Cobresal is based in the mining town of El Salvador, in northern Chile's Atacama region. Its name derives from the Spanish words cobre and sal (copper and salt); the club's logo is a football adorned with a yellow miner's helmet; and its fan-base is drawn largely from employees of the state-run mining company, Codelco. For an annual fee of 7,000 Chilean pesos (just over £9), workers receive a free pass to the club's 20,000-capacity stadium.

When he retired, Lobos began working as a taxi driver, but by 2005 money had grown tight, and, with two daughters to put through university, this footballing hero had little choice but to take a job underground. Now he is back in the headlines – as one of the 33 miners trapped 700m inside the San José copper-gold mine.

As a miner, Lobos, 53, is paid about 700,000 Chilean pesos a month (£915) – around a quarter of what he was earning as a first-division footballer. "As a player, you didn't have to pay for anything," Lobos once said in an interview with the Cobresal fan club. "You just played football and represented the miners."

The change in working conditions was dramatic. In his first year as a miner, Lobos was caught inside La Carola mine when a fire broke out. The exit was blocked and for a full day, Lobos was trapped inside, barely able to breathe as smoke and fumes filled the mine shaft. "Now I know what it means to fill your lungs with dirt and smoke to earn the cash to watch the [Cobresal] team play," he later said.

When Lobos began working in the San José mine, the dangers were so well known that locals called its miners "the kamikazes". The owners of the mine, San Esteban, offered salaries 30% higher than average, a tacit acknowledgement that the job required extraordinary sacrifices.

"My father said it was all so dangerous," says Carolina Lobos, 26, at Camp Hope, the makeshift camp set up by the trapped miners' families. "In his last mining job, they provided him with new shoes every three months. Here they did not give him anything; he had to buy his own boots."

As the driver of a truck shuttling men and supplies in and out of the mine, Lobos passed frequently through the zone that collapsed on 5 August. Initial reports said he had been crushed; that his truck was found covered in blood. "They told us my father had not managed to get down to the refuge," Carolina recalls. "I spent that day screaming and screaming. Imagine, they tell you your father is dead! That day was very complicated."

It had also been Lobos's job to stock and maintain a refuge deep inside the mine; the shelter where the 33 men have now been living for more than a month – already a record for time spent trapped underground.

Predictably, Lobos's entrapment sparked an outpouring of support from fans, former players and coaches. "From the beginning he had the don of leadership," said Ivan Zamorano, the former Chilean star striker who played alongside Lobos at Cobresal early in his career. "I think that down there, trapped, he has tapped into that energy you saw when he played; an emotional man who threw the whole team behind the game. I am sure he is very important to keeping them alive down there."

Since contact was made, Lobos has been writing daily letters to his daughters, describing his life underground with the careful precision of a father protecting his daughter. In one reply, Carolina wrote: "We wanted to send you a ball, but it does not pass through the tube."

As family members cleaned out Lobos's locker at the mouth of the mine, they found car keys, clothes and a black-and-white Adidas T-shirt he wore when off duty. Carolina grabbed the shirt and has yet to let it go. "Every night I sleep with his shirt and I say, 'Old man, take care, patience – they are going to get you out.'"

With their rescue date estimated to be late November to early December, Carolina Lobos knows a lot can still go wrong. "I am nervous about the rescue. The mine is still settling. Imagine if the drilling shakes loose part of the mine and we can't get them out . . . Until the day they are rescued, we don't really know if they are getting out."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/07/trapped-chilean-miners







Chilean miners stuck more than 2000ft under ground for more than a month had moments of light release last night - when they were able to watch their national football team.
However, their joy at being connected with events on the outside world was short-lived when Chile lost 2-1 to Ukraine.
Players wore messages of support which were seen by the 33 men who watched the whole friendly match via fibre optic cable.

The miniature projector snaked down a bore hole displayed the game on an underground wall, creating an image 50-inches wide.
The miners, who were stranded by a collapse on August 5, were seen cheering and singing in footage beamed back up to their relatives who are continuing their vigil at the mine near Copiapo, northern Chile.
It was also reported that Franklin Lobos, a former professional footballer among the group of trapped miners, was able to provide commentary on the game.
The entertainment came as medical officials expressed their concern for the men's health due to the cramped and hot conditions they have been forced to live in.
All the men have suffered from skin sores, foot fungi or abrasions, and infections could prove dangerous in the sweltering heat and humidity, with rescue at least six weeks away.
With temperatures never dipping below 30C and humidity at 88 per cent, the men have no way of drying out.

In such an environment any open wound presents a serious risk, so the miners have been instructed to use extreme caution.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1310081/Trapped-Chilean-miners-able-watch-national-team-play-football.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Offline Dutty

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Man hadda eat and educate he kids

Life eh?
Little known fact: The online transportation medium called Uber was pioneered in Trinidad & Tobago in the 1960's. It was originally called pullin bull.

Offline weary1969

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Man hadda eat and educate he kids

Life eh?

Tings dat make yuh go hmmmmmmmmmmm
Today you're the dog, tomorrow you're the hydrant - so be good to others - it comes back!"


 

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