On the night I got the news I was at home, it must have been about 9.30pm. Mario usually got a lift but I moved the curtain and saw that he hadn’t got out of the truck. That’s when I knew something had happened.

Mario had been working at the San José mine for a year, although he had worked there before for 10 years, so he knew everybody. He went back because there wasn’t enough money in being a taxi driver. He started mining when he was 12 – years ago he lost three fingers in an accident with explosives. Every morning I would kiss him goodbye and look up at the picture of Jesus on my wall. I knew it was a bad mine and I was always afraid. It’s terrible being a miner’s wife.

I rushed straight to the mine. I was one of the first women there and it was bitterly cold. At first we thought it was only a bit of earth blocking the mine so when I found out the true scale, I imagined the worst. But something inside told me they were still alive.