By TIM PADGETT / SAN JOSÉ MINE 

 


 By the time the capsule rose through the mineshaft's manhole-size opening shortly after midnight, the surrounding desert outside the northern Chilean city of Copiapó was as dark and cold as a sepulcher. But when 30-year-old Florencio Avalos emerged from 2,000 ft. (700 m) below the earth — where he and his 32 companions had been huddled since their gold and copper mine collapsed on Aug. 5 — and into the arms of his wife and children, an incand...