a raise borer anchored in concrete, with the last load of the concrete being delivered before dawn on Wednesday, 3 May 2006. The machine cut a horizontal tunnel in diameter. Later that day it was announced that the drilling to go the final would commence within hours. At about 6:45 p.m., drilling of a 20 cm pilot hole for the raise borer commenced. Using the normal procedure for this machinery, a pilot hole was drilled, for the larger diameter borer to follow. This took more than three days to complete. According to Beaconsfield mine manager Matthew Gill, the quartz rock which was drilled through was five times harder than concrete. The drill was capable of drilling through it at per hour, but it was going much more slowly because of the danger of further rock falls, at a rate of around per hour. Drilling of the rescue tunnel commenced on Thursday 4 May at about 8 p.m. guided by the completed pilot hole. It was gouged out to and was planned to come up underneath the men's cage after passing through of rock. The last phase was to involve a miner using hand tools to create an opening whilst lying on his back. As at 7 a.m. on Saturday 6 May the raise borer had drilled about of the rescue tunnel. The mine decided on the shortened route late on Friday night. The major drilling operation was completed by 6 p.m. on Saturday, with only a few metres remaining to reach the trapped miners. Several hours work dismantling and removing the boring machine from the escape tunnel were required before the final phase of the rescue commenced. On 7 May the rescuers reached a belt of hard rock that they found difficult to penetrate. As the jack hammers they were using had little effect, they reverted to using low-impact charges. On 8 May the horizontal tunnel was completed, with rescuers beginning tunnelling upwards in the short vertical tunnel, since the horizontal tunnel had been dug lower than the level of the miners. At about 9:30 p.m. a probe passed through the rock below where the miners were located, which indicated there was only between them, including of hard rock. After 14 nights, at 4:27 a.m., rescuers Glenn Burns, Donovan Lightfoot and Royce Gill finally reached the men, one of them yelling "I can see your light" when he broke through