(Agujita) A “sudden rise in water levels” has occurred at the flooded mine where 10 people are trapped in northern Mexico, which could complicate the rescue operation, authorities said.
Posted at 1:26 p.m.
The water level in well No. 2, which had stood at 70 cm until Friday and could allow emergency access, now reaches 12.92 m, authorities said in a statement, adding that “engineers are assessing the situation on site and the reasons for this sudden rise in the water level”.
At wells 3 and 4, the water reached 15.5 m and 12.5 m respectively, an increase of 8 to 10 m compared to the levels recorded on Friday, according to the press release.
“Engineers will put in place a new strategy capable of allowing the evacuation of water from the El Pinabete mine,” assured the authorities.
This news nevertheless represents a particularly hard blow for the families of the minors who expressed on Saturday the fear of an intervention too late to save their loved ones.
The sister of one of the trapped miners, Magdalena Montelongo, seemed very dejected by the news on Sunday. “I don’t know what strategy they will now be able to put in place,” she told AFP, before adding: “They may have lost control of the situation.”
The National Relief Coordinator and head of the operation, Laura Velázquez, hastened to assure the families in a press release that “the trapped minors will not be abandoned”.
The emergency services are doing their best in “exceptional conditions”, she explained, stressing that the El Pinabete mine was close to that of Conchas Norte, abandoned about thirty years ago, a period in which “its level of water has become very high”.
Mexican authorities announced on Friday that the “conditions” had been met for rescuers to enter the flooded mine, in search of 10 missing miners.
Thanks to the incessant pumping, the water level was lowered to 70 centimeters in one of the three wells among which the emergency services had to try to penetrate, whereas it was 30 meters the day after the accident, on 3 August, Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said.
On Wednesday, a diver had entered one of the wells but had been unable to advance because he had encountered “obstacles to be able to enter the galleries”, according to the governor of the state of Coahuila, Miguel Riquelme.
Several hundred people are taking part in the rescue, in particular with an underwater drone, to save the minors whose relatives are increasingly worried as time goes by.
According to authorities, the miners were carrying out excavation work on August 3 when they broke through a water table.
Coahuila, Mexico’s main coal-producing region, has seen a series of fatal mining accidents over the years. The worst happened in the Pasta de Conchos mine in 2006 when a gas explosion killed 65 miners.