Deep Down Dark

Héctor Tobar’s Deep Down Dark (2014) is an account of the sixty-nine days that a group of Chilean miners was trapped underground before being rescued. In a collective decision, the miners refused to share their story individually, instead, collaborating with Tobar to create this all-encompassing narrative of their experiences. The book proceeds chronologically through the miners’ ordeal, dividing their understanding of what was happening to them into three parts: the seventeen days of hunger and darkness before they were located, the fifty-two days of underground imprisonment before they were rescued, and the aftermath of emerging into the media storm that erupted around them.

The book opens on August 5, 2010, the day of the San José mine collapse. Although this Atacama Desert mine is near the city of Copiapó, the miners come from all over the country to work in seven-day stretches for twelve hours each day before going back home for a break. The job is dirty and exhausting, but it pays much better than most other work, so there are always enough men to go into the mine despite the long-standing concerns about this mine’s safety. The mine only has one entrance and exit, called the Ramp; many of the ostensible emergency escape routes aren’t properly maintained or supplied. As the thirty-three men enter the mine, Tobar introduces them, giving us some idea of their backgrounds and circumstances. The book stays away from casting the men as natural heroes, instead, pointing out flaws like infidelity, aggressiveness, and so on.

In the middle of their shift, after some ominous rumbling from inside the mountain, a huge chunk of rock 550 feet tall and weighing 770,000 tons falls onto the Ramp. In the mine, there is a hard and fast rule that no one should go anywhere alone, so there are small groups of men in different parts of the cave system when this happens. This is the beginning of the crypt phase of the disaster, as the men are buried in almost complete darkness. They react differently. Mario Sepúlveda and Alex Vega try to find another exit. Meanwhile, a small group retreats to the medical supply room where mob mentality takes over and they eat most of the small food reserves they find.



The book flips back and forth between events in the mine and those above ground. There, events unfold surprisingly – and shockingly – slowly. The mining company waits five hours before calling the authorities, and some of the families of those trapped don’t find out what happened until the very end of the day.

The miners are buoyed by the fact that all thirty-three of them are alive – and by the special meaning of the number 33 in Christianity, since it is Jesus Christ’s age during the crucifixion. They consider their families and steel their resolves with these memories.

Meanwhile, the miners’ families gather around San José, and some launch their own rescue missions into the mine. However, the damage to the Ramp is too great for anyone to be able to circumvent it, and there is simply no way for rescuers to descend into the caverns below. Instead, the families set up Camp Esperanza (Camp Hope) to stay nearby in case there are any developments or new information. The mine owners throw in the towel and declare a rescue to be impossible.



To survive in their stone coffin, the men turn to their Catholic faith. They also ration the few tins of fish and cookies that are their only food – possibly for weeks. There is water, but it is muddy and usually used for washing off equipment. The only light comes from their headlamps. One of the men begins a running regimen that will eventually make him a marathon runner. Another starts a daily prayer circle, which turns into a sort of group therapy session where the men own up to and apologize for previous mistakes and transgressions. This brings the group closer together and enables better cooperation despite the men’s worsening hunger and feelings of deprivation.

Finally, seventeen days after the collapse, the surface teams of rescuers establish a connection to the trapped miners. Although this is deeply reassuring to both the men and their families, it’s unclear whether the rescue can actually happen – all that the team is able to do initially is send a very small digital camera, supplies of glucose gel for food, and some medical supplies. The men can communicate with their loved ones – one even gets to witness the birth of his child – but several men are in kidney failure with no obvious way to get treatment.

Tobar details how contact with the outside world actually tears apart some of the bonds and camaraderie the men had established in the crypt. Now that the mine is more like a prison, the men act like they are incarcerated – forming alliances, getting into disagreements and fights over privileges and resources. Their steely resolve is depleted as they are forced to confront their possible death and their absence in their families’ lives.



At last, sixty-nine days after the Ramp was blocked, the above ground crews create a kind of elevator that lifts the miners out of the mountain one by one. The book takes some time to differentiate between the way the media portrays this event – as an all-positive happy ending to a nightmarish scenario – and the way the men experience being survivors of a major trauma. Trying to navigate being a celebrity while also trying to cope with PTSD makes for a very trying transition. Of course, each of the men deals with what happened differently. Some keep their memories private; others try to document the inside of the mine to preserve their impressions. Some drift apart from the group, while others engage with each other only to fight over the division of post-rescue success. Still, Tobar ends the book by describing the clear respect and admiration the men feel for each other when they are all gathered together in the same room.