They call it red charcoal because it's stained with blood.
In Coahuila, where 99% of the ore that is sold to the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission is extracted, a new tragedy has shaken the sector.
In this region strewn with mines and dedicated exclusively to this trade, from which thousands of families live and whose young people inherit their parents' work without choice, at least 10 miners have once again been trapped after the collapse of a well 60 meters deep.
The coal that is sold to the Mexican Government, one of the banners of the Government's energy policy that elevates national self-sufficiency, is very expensive every year for those who extract it.
In Sabinas, 300 kilometers from the state capital, the relatives of the workers wait for answers while many wonder: "How many more have to die?"
The deadly conditions in which these types of mines operate cause tragedies every year without a government measure having prevented it.
In June 2021, seven workers died after another coal mine collapsed near Sabinas, in Rancherías.
Human rights organizations had repeatedly denounced the terrible working conditions of the operation, even before the director of the Federal Electricity Commission, Manuel Barlett, but they received no response and the tunnel, as they predicted, ended up collapsing.
And the great mining tragedy of 2006, that of Pasta de Conchos, which claimed the lives of 65 colleagues in an explosion, is still very present in the collective memory of the region.
The gas accumulated inside and finally killed the workers who were working at the time.
The miners had been denouncing the insecurity and the terrible working conditions for years.
One of the most recognized activists for her defense of the rights of miners, Cristina Auerbach, insists: "How many more for the authorities to require these companies to operate with the minimum requirements of protection for workers, hygiene, media, even so that they can be hired legally?
"What has happened with Sabinas is the same movie, repeated over and over again," she adds.
Auerbach explains what the working conditions are like for the miners who have been buried by the mud 60 meters underground.
"These are wells, vertical shots, this one was 60 meters long and filled with water, which is more like mud, about 30 meters," says the activist.
She also points out that it is a mistake to call it a “collapse”, since it can somehow be related to an accident.
And she flatly denies it, she has seen it in other similar events: “What happens is that in coal mines you have to drill, make holes in the wall to see if there is gas or water, if there is nothing, you advance a couple meters, but there always has to be a protection barrier.
If there isn't and the wall breaks, the pressure of the water, which carries mud, drags everything in its path”, she explains.
And she adds: “It is a mine that did not have an emergency exit.
It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Labor to inspect this type of well.
They say they had no complaints, but it shouldn't be necessary, their job is to guarantee the safety of the miners."
The mines in this area in Sabinas also suffer other risks due to their proximity to the Sabinas River.
“The same thing happened in Rancherías, and since then there has been no policy to prevent it from happening again,” says Auerbach.
The activist denounces that the Federal Electricity Commission has also recently commissioned more than a million tons of coal for the area.
“This is the worst mining.
They make society believe that we heroically generate electricity for the country, but the reality is that it is through the precarious forms and miserable living conditions of the miners: always poor and always those who die, ”she concludes.
Between 2000 and 2019, some 2,626 miners were permanently disabled, according to the extensive investigation
Coahuila's Red Carbon: Silence Ends Here.
Despite all this, in a region of 160,000 inhabitants, some 3,000 families depend directly on the coal industry and nearly 11,000 indirect jobs associated with it.
The activist explains that a miner earns an average of 150 pesos a day, officially registered with social security, illegally they can pay some more money.
But of this official amount, 70% is what each family will receive as a monthly pension for their deceased father, husband or brother, around 2,000 pesos, about 100 dollars.
For the biggest mining tragedy in the country, Pasta de Conchos, also in Coahuila, families with up to three children received a pension of 3,000 pesos a month.
For Rancherías, families are receiving a similar pension.
“Who lives with that?
No one,” Auerbach denounces.
The miners were working at a depth of 60 meters when they encountered an underground water flow that caused the tunnel to collapse, according to a statement from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS).
The crash happened around half past one in the afternoon.
At first, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, reported that there were nine people trapped in the mine, but the attorney general of Coahuila, Gerardo Márquez Guevara, has raised the figure to 10, according to
Milenio
.
However, there is no official list with the names of the trapped miners.
One of the miners, who managed to escape, is the one who sounded the alert, according to the local press.
The mine, known as Las Conchas, is located in the community of La Agüita, 300 kilometers north of Saltillo, the state capital.
The Secretary of National Defense (Sedena) has initiated the DN-III plan, a military operation designed to assist the civilian population in disaster situations.
At least 92 soldiers have moved to the site along with landslide specialists and a team of sniffer dogs, in addition to the National Guard, Civil Protection and rescue teams.
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