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),
2010 Copiapó mining accident a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer at the "Los Angeles Times". Tobar had exclusive access to the miners and in October 2014 published an official account titled "Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free". Tobar described the previous books published on the topic as "quick and dirty" with "almost no cooperation from the miners." These books include "Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert" (August 2011) by Marc Aronson; "Buried Alive!: How 33 Miners Survived 69 Days Deep Under the Chilean