Chilean miner rescue capsule finds home in China

One of the capsules used to rescue 33 trapped Chilean miners in 2010 became a permanent exhibit in Chile's National Pavilion in northern China, state media reported today.
The metallic "Phoenix" containers, created by the Chilean Navy in cooperation with US space agency NASA, carried the miners back to safety from 700 meters underground, where they had been trapped for 69 days following a mine collapse.
The container has symbolic relevance for the energy hungry China as hundreds of Chinese miners either die or get trapped in accidents while working in coal mines with poor safety standards.
The Chilean capsule established today in the port city of Tianjin is one of the three "Phoenix" capsules, and the only one on permanent display outside the South American country, Chilean envoy to China Luis Schmit told Xinhua news agency.

He said the capsule will stay in China definitively, as a gift to the Chinese people and evidence of friendship, as well as the growing trade and cooperation between the two nations.