(CNN) -- Thirty-three miners trapped 2,300 feet (701 meters) below ground in Chile are depending on food, medicine and supplies being dropped to them through a 4-inch-wide tube.
What comes out of that tube will have to sustain the men both physically and mentally for a long time -- perhaps four months, experts say -- while a shaft wide enough to pull a man through is drilled.
The miners already have been trapped for 18 days, since a rockslide inside the San Esteban gold and copper mine cut off their exit route.
A probe retrieved a note from the miners Sunday saying all were alive and well in a cramped, 530-square-foot (50-square-meter) shelter. They survived by sharing tiny portions of canned fish stored in the shelter room.
"Medics now are beginning to put down glucose water through a tube, first starting off with liquids and rehydrating salts, then in the coming days will put more solid food down," CNN's Karl Penhaul reported Tuesday morning from the scene near the town of Copiapo in northern Chile.
"But psychologists say really it is the mental health that's the real thing," Penhaul added. Forced confinement for months in a small, dark, hot space with many other people will pose intense psychological and emotional challenges. The men will have to help one another, Penhaul said. CNN
