Incredible true story of a disastrous mine collapse in the practically uninhabitable Atacama desert of Chile. In its wake, we will witness human strength pitted not only against the forces of nature but also against its own constant companion--human weakness. We observe this struggle amongst the coal mine owners and managers, the 33 trapped miners, hundreds of their loved ones, friends, supporters, gawkers, and members of the press, the rescuers, the Chilean politicians, government officials, and the huge worldwide tv audience. There is one man's greed working against another man's determination to feed his family. In response to the severe stress, we see one man's ingenuity next to another's bad judgement, and then at a later time see that they have switched places. The same crazy thing can happen in displays of cooperation and contention, taking action and giving up, self-promotion and self-sacrifice, and--underlying it all--the struggle between despair and hope. Because of his attention to the messy relationships, the different responses to crises, the good, the bad, and the ugly, the author takes the names of those affected by this prolonged underground nightmare and reveals to us the real people behind the names. They are real, mostly ordinary people thrust into a rationally impossible, but irrationally possible rescue operation. It is only possible because it can be seen and made so by the amazingly flexible and adaptable human mind.
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