Every minute counts for the 10 workers trapped in the depths of a coal mine in Coahuila, Mexico, as rescuers continue to work against the clock to get them out alive.
Outside, his relatives live the drama of the rescue in the first row, clinging to the hope that it will be successful, after the mine was flooded on Wednesday due to a bad drilling that leaked the water from the Sabinas river into its interior, causing a landslide that sealed the exit.
“My son is still trapped down there,”
a woman says between sobs to journalists who have come from all over the country to report on the incident that keeps many on edge.
A helmet in front of the mouth of a coal mine in Sabina, Coahuila, where nine miners were trapped after a flash flood, on August 3, 2022.Millennium
From above the mine is barely visible as a hole on a mound of coal, which the locals call "pocito" because of its small size, but below it extends a long way through an intricate labyrinth of tunnels that interconnect with two other mines. .
Workers are believed to have been
trapped as deep as nearly 500 feet
in that system.
One of the workers would have managed to escape the flood on Wednesday through the entrance of another of the "wells" to ask for help, according to local press reports.
Since then, there is no news about those who remained inside.
Four other miners were injured in the incident.
[Relatives of miners trapped in Mexico hope for a miracle]
“I hope so, hopefully and God willing, because I say that miracles exist.
That they are well and that they come out, "asked one of the brothers of Mario Cabreales, 45, one of the 10 trapped miners and whom he described as" the joy of the family ".
"My heart says that he is alive," said Juanita Tijerina, sister of three other workers, between tears.
Members of the Mexican Army in front of one of the entrances to the mine during the rescue operation.Reuters
Coahuila Governor Miguel Ángel Riquelme said rescuers would use “high-capacity” pumps, with more than 100 horsepower, at the mouths of the three small mines to drain them.
Federal authorities installed portable power plants in the area to supply the pumps.
"It is important to highlight that to get there you have to go down three wells. It is complicated, but we have achieved it
," said the Civil Protection coordinator, Laura Velázquez.
“The important thing is that the pumps that Conagua sent us are being located, we are putting pumps in each well, to extract the greatest amount of water and have immediate access to the mines and rescue the miners as soon as possible,” he added.
The Mexican Navy also sent six divers from its special forces to help with the rescue.
At least nine miners are trapped in a Coahuila coal mine after a landslide
Aug. 4, 202200:21
The mine is located near the community of La Agujita, municipality of Sabinas, in the coal belt of Coahuila, an area where clandestine operations proliferate and accidents are not uncommon.
State officials have assured that the mine had been operating since January and there was no complaint of anomalies, reports the newspaper El Universal.
However, workers in the area of the tragedy stated in an interview with Noticias Telemundo that they "lacked material and ventilation ducts."
The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, warned that the owner of the mine is not yet known, although he assured that they are already investigating it.
"We are going to seek to save the miners, to rescue them
," assured AMLO.
