Thaindian News

Oct 15 (THAINDIAN NEWS) One of the thirty three Chilean men who were trapped in a collapsed mine for sixty nine days recently shared how the men joked about cannibalism, but only after the supplies of food had began to come in. Before that, when the threat of starving was very real, the thought of cannibalism was never mentioned-aloud.

According to the Guardian, the men also broke into three different groups, and fights sometimes broke out. There was an agreement made over sharing what food they had after the collapse, before the supplies began to arrive. They were in the mine seventeen days before a probe found them and was able to send down food.

In those seventeen days, the men had to survive on half a spoonful of salmon or tuna a day. This was how the food was rationed out. Richard Villaroel, one of the trapped miners stated “We were getting eaten up, as we were working. We were moving, but not eating well. We started to eat ourselves up and get skinnier and skinnier. That is called cannibalism, a sailor down there said. My body was eating itself up.”

When asked if there was ever a real fear of the men eating each other before the probe found them, Villaroel replied, “At that moment no one talked about it. But once [help came] it became a topic of joking, but only once it was over, once they found us. But at the time there was no talk of cannibalism.”