On Thursday, rescue workers and engineers moved forward with preparations for Plan C to rescue the 33 Chilean miners, trapped 2,300 feet underground in a collapsed mine shaft.

[Maria Segovia, Relative of Trapped Miner]:
"We are in the final stage because now with the third machine in place, that will help. Now the last stage can begin for sure because that machine will do 23.6 inches, it won't do measurements, it won't do double excavation. It will do a single excavation, so with this, we are in the final stage to have our boys with us."

Plan A continues to chug along, and the quicker drill in Plan B is back in action after a major set back earlier this week when part of the drill bit broke off.

Both Plan A and Plan B dug passed the 980 foot mark.

In preparations for Plan C, engineers are assembling a massive drill, which can dig as far as 6,560 feet and is used for oil exploration, on a football field-sized base at the mine head.

[Maria Segovia, Relative of Trapped Miner]:
"My boy knows, my brother knows and everybody knows that I'm one of the loud ones here, that I won't sit quiet when I see that the machines stop. I ask what happens. I make sure the machines don't sit without working."

Engineers say they should be able to reach the miners within the first few days of November and could have the tunnels widened enough to pull the miners out by early December.

This moves up the earlier goal of December 23 as rescuers try to free the miners before Christmas.

The miners have been trapped since August 5 when a cave-in covered their route of escape from the copper mine in Chile's northern Atacama Desert.