(CNN) -- The 33 workers trapped inside a mine in Chile cheered, applauded and sang the country's national anthem in their first verbal contact with officials.
Several of Chile's top officials gathered around a white telephone outside the mine Monday evening as the miners' voices crackled through the speakers in an emotional conversation that was also broadcast on television.
"We are listening all of us, strong and clear. Who's speaking?...How are you doing?" said Mining Minister Laurence Golborne, according to CNN Chile.
Miner Luiz Urzua responded: "We are well and hoping that you will rescue us."
The miners cheered as officials informed them that their family members had been keeping vigil outside the mine, CNN Chile reported. The San Esteban mine is near the town of Copiapo, in the Atacama region in northern Chile.
"Yesterday, all of Chile celebrated in all the plazas of the country that we had made contact with you. Today they are going to be even happier that we have spoken," Golborne said.
The miners survived for more than 17 days by sharing small amounts of tuna and mackerel that were in a shelter, along with water, President Sebastian Pinera told CNN en Espanol on Monday.
"They had very little food," he said. "They told us they ate tuna and mackerel every other day, and that they shared ... a jar of peaches among the 33."
A second probe reached the miners Monday, making a total of two devices that are capable of relaying communications, food and water between the trapped miners and those on the ground.
Pinera said he saw the miners in images relayed by a video camera on one of the probes rescuers sent into the mine.
"I saw them jumping like children, with an infinite joy. They moved their arms, they turned on their flashlights," Pinera said.
The area where the miners find themselves is about 50 square meters (538 square feet), Pinera said.
He described the shelter as a type of cavern where they had access to an area called the "workshop," where they found batteries for light and water for consumption.
Pinera estimated the temperatures where the miners are hover between 32-35 degrees Celsius (90-95 degrees Fahrenheit).
Officials learned Sunday that the copper and gold miners had survived after an August 5 cave-in trapped them more than 2,300 feet underground.
It could take three months or more to rescue the workers, Pinera said. But the miners' health will take priority over rescue-and-removal efforts, Golborne said at a news conference at the disaster site in northern Chile.
Davitt McAteer, the former director of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, told CNN's "American Morning" Tuesday that rescuers have a "two-fold problem."
"They've got the immediate problem of getting supplies and food to these individuals who have been trapped for 18 days now... They've got to satisfy their basic needs," he said.
"Then, they've got the secondary problem, longer-term problem, of drilling down a 28-inch, 30-inch hole and getting it down 2,500 feet in very unstable rock conditions. And to do that, in order to make it successful, they have got to go slow. And that's the problem, is that despite the fact that everybody wants to rush, the fact is they have to use a slow drill in order to try to stabilize and get stable the hole so that they can, in fact, pull people out from that entrapment underground," McAteer added.
Medical officials were sending water down to the miners and then will determine whether they are healthy enough to tolerate liquid nutrients, said Jorge Diaz, the doctor in charge of the medical aspects of the rescue. Supplies are being sent down to the miners in tubes that are about 4 inches (10 centimeters) wide, officials said.
Psychological help also will be given to the trapped miners, Diaz said.
McAteer told "American Morning" the mental and emotional components of the miners' entrapment may be difficult to overcome.
"How do you come up with things for them to do and arrange things so that they can get their attention diverted from just sitting there waiting? That's going to be the real challenge for the Chileans and for the rescuers," he said. "I think the fact that they've made it these 18 days is very, very positive. But the euphoria of making contact with the surface is going to last a couple days and then it is going to be a long slope."
McAteer added that the Chilean government and counselors were helping the "resilient" miners, but modern technology could be the biggest boon to the caged miners' mental health.
"I see no reason why you couldn't pass cellphones down to them or computers, tethered down to them. We're in a new day. There'll need to be -- something will need to be done to divert their attention," he said.
Chile's mining minister reiterated Monday that those responsible for the cave-in will be prosecuted, a point also made a few minutes later at a separate event by the Chilean president.
"We will investigate and punish those who are responsible," Pinera said.
Family members had cheered Sunday when Pinera held up a handwritten note pulled from the mine. The note was tied to a probe authorities had lowered earlier Sunday.
Written in Spanish in red ink, it said simply: "We are fine in the shelter, the 33 of us."
