This video grab shows the first miner Florencio Avalos, one of the 33 miners trapped in the San Jose mine, 800 km north of the Chilean capital Santiago, is rescued successfully back to the ground on Oct. 12, 2010. The operation to lift out the 33 miners trapped for over two months in northern Chile is under way right now. [Xinhua]

The 31st of the 33 trapped Chilean miners, 26-year-old Pedro Cortez, was rescued on Wednesday after having stayed underground for 69 days.

Florencio Avalos, 31, was the first to be hoisted to the ground 10 minutes after midnight Wednesday, ending his 69-day underground ordeal under the desert of northern Chile.

No one before has survived this deep underground for so long.

The 32 Chileans and one Bolivian are being brought to the surface one at a time in the specially built capsule through a shaft dug by rescue teams to a cavern in which the miners had found refuge. The operation is expected to last for more than 30 hours.