Celebrations have erupted across Chile following the rescue of all thirty-three miners trapped underground for over two months. On Wednesday, the last and thirty-third miner, Luis Urzua, was pulled out of the earth in a capsule from 2,050 feet below ground.

Luis Urzua: “We had the strength. We had the spirit. We had the courage to fight, to fight for our lives, to fight for our families. That was what was most magnificent.”

Each miner was pulled up individually during the twenty-two-hour operation. They had spent the previous sixty-nine days trapped under the collapsed copper mine, the longest anyone has survived underground. They have all been hospitalized, but none are suffering from serious ailments. Shortly after the rescue’s completion, Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said the event had changed his country.

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera: “The miners are not the same miners who got trapped on August 5th. They have come out strengthened, and they have given us a lesson. But Chile is not the same either. I think that Chile today is more united and strong than ever. And I think that Chile today is more valued and respected in the entire world.”

Speaking from the White House earlier in the day, President Obama paid tribute to the miners’ ordeal.

President Obama: “Last night the whole world watched the scene at Camp Esperanza as the first miner was lifted out from under more than 2,000 feet of rock and then embraced by his young son and family. And the tears they shed after so much time apart expressed not only their own relief, not only their own joy, but the joy of people everywhere.”