Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet below the Chilean Desert

Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet below the Chilean Desert
By Marc Aronson
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2011. 134 pgs. Young Adult Nonfiction

On August 5, 2010, a collapse in the San José mine in Chile trapped thirty-three miners underground, attracting the world's attention. For the next seventeen days, drillers and mining experts from around the world worked with native Chileans to try to reach the miners and determine if anyone had survived. Miraculously, they all had, but it took several more weeks, and more international assistance, to extract the miners from 2,300 feet below the earth.

Aronson's book is interesting in that it focuses not so much on the miners and their families but on the people who were anxiously trying to get them out--from the nine drill teams working to establish first contact, to the three teams that later were working toward getting the miners out. At the beginning, Aronson also provides some background theories about the tectonic plates and how the Chile is earthquake prone, as well as information about mining, venturing off into a discussion about Hephaestus and how, like the Greek god, miners are often under-respected. I enjoyed the background information about Chile and mining; the Greek tangent didn't quite work for me. Overall, though, I liked this concise account of what happened in Chile and the people who worked to make rescue possible.

AE