Ten miners remained trapped in a coal mine in northern Mexico on Friday, August 5th, while several hundred military and civilian agents intensified rescue efforts and the arrival of a group of divers was expected to join the search efforts.
The miners were trapped in a mine in the municipality of Sabinas, in the northern state of Coahuila, which collapsed Wednesday afternoon when the men ran into an adjoining area full of water that collapsed causing a flood.
During the morning presidential conference, the national coordinator of Civil Protection, Laura Velázquez, reported that five miners managed to escape and were taken to a health center after presenting injuries. Three still remain hospitalized.
The undersecretary of the National Defense Secretariat, General Agustín Rádiala Suástegui, explained that the miners are trapped between two coal pits that are 60 meters deep, which are flooded with 34 meters of water.
As part of the rescue efforts, the security forces are carrying out works to drain and pump the wells.
In the next few hours, the arrival of a National Guard aircraft with six special forces divers is expected to enter the wells when “favorable conditions” are met to rescue the miners, the official reported. .
Some 269 agents of the military forces and other security forces participate in the rescue efforts.
“I wish with all my soul that we rescue the miners,” said President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the end of his morning conference in which he asked different organizations to report if they have large water extraction pumps to send them to Coahuila and support actions in the mine.
López Obrador took the opportunity to send a message to the relatives of the miners to whom he said “you must not lose faith, you must not lose hope … you are not alone.”
The official said that the priority is to rescue the miners and that exploitation permits and inspections will then be investigated to determine who is responsible.
The mine began operations in January of this year and, according to the local government, there is no history of complaints of any type of anomaly.
Between June and July of last year, there were landslides in two mines in Coahuila in which nine miners perished.
The worst mining accident in recent Mexican history also occurred in that state, in the early hours of February 19, 2006. There was an explosion at the Pasta de Conchos mine while 73 miners were on duty. Eight were rescued with severe bruises and burns and the rest died. Only the bodies of two of them were recovered.
Two years ago, president Lopez Obrador promised to rescue the bodies of the buried miners, a job of great technical complexity and high cost that has not yet begun.
Source: El Universal