Stay slim enough to be saved, miners warned

Just 35in around the waist — that's how slim Chile's 33 trapped miners have been told they need to be to squeeze through the escape tunnel, the country's health minister has said.

Dr Jaime Manalich said rescuers were applying a "holistic" plan to support the miners' wellbeing during the months it may take to carve out the tunnel, including exercise to keep them from gaining weight.

"We're working to determine a secure area where the miners can manage things. The space they're in actually has about 2km of galleries to walk around in," he said yesterday.

The miners were plunged into darkness on 5 August by the collapse of the main shaft of a gold and copper mine that runs like a corkscrew for more than four miles under a barren mountain in northern Chile's Atacama Desert.

They gained contact with the outside world on Sunday, when rescuers finally drilled a narrow bore-hole down to their living-room-sized shelter after seven failed attempts.

It could take four months to dig the rescue tunnel.

The health minister also said that as of yesterday, the miners were getting more nutritious food, in the form of tins of a chocolate and vanilla flavoured milk-like drink that has been enriched with calories and protein. It will be days yet before the men can have solid food, Dr Manalich said.