A year ago on Thursday, the miraculous "rebirth" of 33 Chilean miners held the world transfixed in a 22-hour dramatic rescue with the men hauled one by one back to the surface after two months trapped underground.

Millions watched as the drama unfolded on television after weeks of painstaking efforts to drill down to reach the men trapped 622 meters (2,040 feet) down after a cave-in at the San Jose mine in the northern Atacama Desert.

More than 600 engineers, rescue workers and doctors took part in the complex, difficult operation to get the miners back after the mine collapsed around them on August 5, 2010.

It was, said to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, an "extraordinary triumph of human ingenuity."

Everything had been prepared down to the last detail, including the order in which the men were to be brought up through the narrow tunnel hewn into the rock.

The most agile were used first to test the one-man capsule which was cranked up from the bottom of the mine, then the weakest men. Last to emerge were those men deemed the strongest, who could bear the long wait, allowing their comrades to taste freedom first.

"They did medical and psychological tests to see how we were doing down there, and it seemed that I was the best person to go last," Luis Urzua, the quiet, calm shift supervisor, told AFP.

"On the final night (underground), I was told to rest. I had spent a sleepless night the night before and the rescue workers told me to get some sleep.

"I slept very well, better than ever," the 55-year-old recalled.

He had only worked for two months at the mine in the remote northern Chile desert. But when the world caved in around him and his team, he was the one who swiftly took charge.

He organized the rationing of the food -- two spoonfuls of tuna and a half a glass of milk every 48 hours -- until a rescue probe managed to reach them 17 days later.

He also organized the men into eight-hour shifts during their confinement to give their endless days some kind of structure, and assigned duties to give them responsibility for their survival.

Florencio Avalos, 31, was the first to undertake the long and risky ascent back to the top crammed inside the special missile-shaped capsule which trundled up the 66-centimeter (26-inch) wide tunnel which had taken two months to drill.

"It was a bit like going up 700 meters in an elevator, but with more noise," as it clanged against the rock, said Urzua.

The nail-biting ride took about 15 minutes to reach the surface, and Avalos arrived to cheers and tears of joy strapped to a space harness which measured his respiration rate and his temperature.

After days and days in the dark, all the miners were also equipped with special sunglasses to protect their eyes accustomed to the gloom underground.

Silently, Avalos enfolded his wife, Monica, and seven-year-old son Byron in a long, heartfelt embrace and then Chilean President Sebastian Pinera who was there to witness the rescue.

Like the others, Avalos was then taken by stretcher to a waiting medical building for a barrage of tests.

The capsule was plunged back into the earth and returned, this time carrying Mario Sepulveda. He shot out of the capsule, punching the air with his fists, crying out "Long live Chile," joking with the rescue teams and handing out stones as souvenirs from the bottom of the mine.

"I have been with God and with the devil," said Sepulveda, now 41, summing up his ordeal and miraculous salvation.

"I seized the hand of God, it was the best hand. I always knew God would get us out of there," he said.

One by one the miners were all brought safely to the surface in the capsule dubbed "Phoenix."

"Everyone waited calmly for their turn," said Urzua. "We were alive, We were doing fine, we were eating normally."

He highlighted how after the initial 17-day ordeal all the men had been well cared for and trained by the specialists on the surface.

Urzua was the last man out and was also greeted by President Pinera.

"I'm taking over your shift, and I congratulate you for fulfilling your duty, for leaving last like a ship's captain," Pinera told him.

Andres Sougarret, the Chilean engineer who directed the extraordinary excavation effort, said much of the credit goes to the miners themselves "and reflects the Chilean work ethic and their perseverance. That's what allowed them to organize and wait without despairing."

Sougarret told AFP he had doubts about "plan B," one of three shafts drilled in a feverish rescue effort, and the one that ended up being used in the extraction.

"We were 70 meters away and the angle was off by three degrees," he said. "But we saw that we could only correct one degree every 100 meters. What happened then is something that I can't technically explain. I believe we had divine help, but people can interpret that any way they like."