(Mexico City) The drop in water levels thanks to incessant pumping raises hopes that rescuers will be able to enter the flooded Mexican mine on Wednesday or Thursday to find 10 miners who have been missing for six days, the government announced on Tuesday.
Posted at 5:01 p.m.
Footage collected by an underwater drone equipped with a camera on Monday showed obstacles and currents still making it too risky to send divers into the depths of the Agujita mine in the northern state of Coahuila. ), said the National Civil Defense Coordinator, Laura Velazquez.
Officials prefer to wait for the water level to drop another 1.50 m to allow “divers and rescuers to enter,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters on Tuesday.
Several hundred rescuers, including army soldiers and divers, are taking part in the rescue to save the miners, whose loved ones are growing increasingly worried as time goes on.
Efforts are focused on pumping water from the mine, which is 60 meters deep.
According to the authorities, the miners were carrying out excavation work when they broke through a water table.
Coahuila, Mexico’s main coal-producing region, has seen a series of deadly mining incidents over the years. The worst accident occurred at the Pasta de Conchos mine in 2006 when a firedamp explosion killed 65 miners.