(Mexico City) Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has asked rescuers to do “more” to save the ten miners trapped underground since Wednesday in northeastern Mexico following the collapse and flooding of three coal pits.
Posted at 3:48 p.m.
Updated at 7:56 p.m.
“We must continue to work to save the miners. We must continue to do what we are doing and more,” the president said during a visit to the scene of the accident in the state of Coahuila.
“I want it to be as soon as possible,” he added to reporters.
“I’ll see how the rescue goes. I will realize the situation, “said the president announcing his visit to Agujita in the locality of Las Sabinas.
Nearly 400 rescuers are mobilized to try to save the ten miners stuck 60 meters deep, half of which was flooded.
The president spoke on Saturday of a “decisive” day for rescue operations: “We will know if there is the possibility that divers can enter (into the mine) without risk”.
Divers were unable to enter on Saturday, however, as the water level (34 meters flood) had only dropped by 9.5 meters.
The divers “said they did not know when” they could go down, told AFP on the spot Alicia Huerta, sister-in-law of one of the ten miners underground.
The emergency services use about twenty pumps. However, experts fear new infiltration from a neighboring mine.
Recurring incidents
Saturday evening, relatives participated in a mass near the improvised camp where they have been meeting since Wednesday, away from the relief area cordoned off by the authorities.
Sole producer of Mexican coal, the state of Coahuila is used to mining tragedies. In June 2021, seven workers died after an underground collapse.
On February 19, 2006, 65 miners died when an underground gas pocket exploded at Pasta de Conchos, a mine controlled by conglomerate Grupo México.
Sixteen years later, 63 of the 65 bodies are still lying at the bottom of the mine.
Families have been “demanding measures” against accidents for 16 years “and their appeals have not been heard”, lamented the Society of Jesus, which affirms that the Jesuits accompany relatives in their request for justice before the authorities. international.
In October 2010 in Chile, 33 workers were able to get out of a copper mine, almost 700 meters deep, in the Atacama desert after 69 days underground and a landslide.