More than 15 years after 33 miners became trapped underground in Chile, National Geographic is revisiting one of the world’s most dramatic rescue operations in a new three-part documentary series.
CHILEAN MINE RESCUE: RACE AGAINST TIME will premiere across Africa on Monday, 28 September at 20:30 CAT, with all three episodes airing back-to-back on National Geographic. The series will also be available on Disney+ in South Africa.
The documentary looks back at the 2010 disaster that trapped 33 miners nearly half a mile beneath Chile’s Atacama Desert.
On 5 August 2010, a collapse at the San José copper-gold mine cut the miners off from the surface. For 17 days, the world had no idea whether they were still alive.
Their discovery sparked an international rescue effort, bringing together Chilean engineers, rescuers, drillers and specialists from around the world. Above ground, families refused to give up hope as the operation continued for another 52 days.
The series features previously unseen cellphone footage recorded inside the mine, alongside interviews with survivors, their families and members of the rescue teams.
It also includes Jeff Kofman, who was ABC’s international correspondent at the time and among the first international journalists to arrive at the scene.
Rather than focusing only on the rescue itself, the series explores what happened before, during and after the miners were brought to the surface — from the collapse and their struggle underground to the engineering breakthrough that ultimately gave them a way home.
When the rescue capsule finally emerged, an estimated one billion people around the world watched.
The documentary is the latest instalment in National Geographic’s Race Against Time franchise, following documentaries including Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time and Tsunami: Race Against Time.
CHILEAN MINE RESCUE: RACE AGAINST TIME is produced by Blast Films for National Geographic.
Main Image: Nat Geo
