Compañía Minera San Esteban Primera workers at this mine were paid around 20% higher wages than at other Chilean mines, due to its poor safety record. The San José Mine is located 45 kilometers northwest of Copiapó. It began operations in 1889. In 1957, Jorge Kemeny Letay, a Hungarian immigrant founded the San Esteban Mining Company (). The San José Mine () is a small copper-gold mine located near Copiapó, Atacama Region, Chile. The mine was the site of a 2010 collapse which trapped 33 miners underground. Its workings are reached by a long sloping roadway with many spiral turns (a diagram shows ten turns),
Beaconsfield Mine collapse the men, one of them yelling "I can see your light" when he broke through the ground which was separating him from the miners, to which the miners replied "I can see your light too". Brant Webb was freed at 4:47 a.m. on 9 May, followed by Todd Russell at 4:54 a.m. They were driven up the spiral decline of the mine, arriving at a medical station at the base of the vertical shaft from the surface at about 5:30 a.m. They were checked by a doctor, and then sent up the lift towards the surface. About thirty metres from