Whew, someone screwed on their thinking cap! With a ventilation shaft now dug to the Chilean miners trapped a half mile underground, the bosses topside have agreed to allow two packs of cigarettes a day to be sent down the supply shaft.
Two packs per day for 33 miners? Assuming only 25 percent of the miners smoke, that works out to about 5.2 cigarettes per smoker. Hardly luxurious.
Still, it’s way better than nothing and I applaud whatever clear-headed Chilean official who realized that the miners should have as much of a say over their fate as they can.
Interesting that another thing that the miners wanted was uncensored information, which was denied to them for a time. Topside officials had decided the men had to be protected from the truth of their predicament. For their mental health.