Tension between the relatives of the miners and López Obrador during his visit to the Coahuila mine

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has landed this Sunday in the affected area of ​​the Sabinas mine, Coahuila, five days after the drilling of a wall 60 meters deep caused a flood and collapsed a coal well that has left trapped 10 miners.

The president arrived around 3:30 p.m. and briefly met with the rescue teams to speed up the work.

The visit has caused a moment of tension with shoving and shouting between relatives, who are desperately resisting at the gates of the mine with no news since Wednesday, and National Guard agents.

The slim chances that they have survived so long underground, submerged in mud,

After the meeting with those responsible for the rescue, the president has left the mine after just over an hour in the place, without meeting with the relatives, whom he has only greeted, or giving statements to the press.

However, in a brief interview with some media he has declared: "They have to do everything to rescue them, everything we are doing and more, I hope it is as soon as possible."

According to the testimony of the relatives, López Obrador has left the mine "angry" after a moment of "disorder", with jostling and shouting between the relatives of the miners, who wanted to get closer to speak with the president, and members of the Army and the National Guard, who have made a protective fence around the president.

"He only came to take a picture and left," the wife of one of the workers trapped underground has said angrily.

The president, who has closely followed the evolution of the rescue efforts during a tour of the country, has suddenly changed his plans and has decided to go to the area of ​​the tragedy this Sunday to find out the details of the search, which already adds 120 hours without news.

Despite the enormous deployment of the federal government —which sent more than 400 agents and twenty pumps to extract the water— and the state government to empty the well and rescue the workers, relatives and colleagues have desperately insisted that they be the miners in the area, who know the terrain, who come down to look for them as soon as possible.

The arrival of the president has put pressure on the authorities so that the rescue can take place as soon as possible.

Sources close to the works speak that López Obrador's intention is that it be carried out this Sunday.

The water, which was 30 meters deep until Saturday, has dropped to 10 meters, according to a rescue team source.

“We almost made it,” he celebrates.

01:26

Relatives await news of trapped miners

Miguel Ángel Riquelme, governor of Coahuila, informs local and international media about the situation of the rescue, after his meeting with the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Photo: Emilio Espejel (El País) |

Video: Reuters

The president was on Sunday morning supervising the implementation of a health program in Colima (in the southwest of the country), when he announced to the media: "I'm going there, I'm going to see how the rescue is, I'm going to see How is the situation".

The Coahuila tragedy has come back to him like a boomerang in the face of his government's commitment to national coal as a strategy for energy supply.

And that is why, since Thursday, the president announced in one of his morning conferences that what concerned him most was finding the miners alive.

The coal region of Coahuila is one of the pillars of the electrical reform that López Obrador wants to carry out.

Here, 99% of the coal purchased by the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) is produced, the key piece in the president's strategy: an institution to which he intends to grant almost monopoly power over private companies in the sector.

The president's objective, in his own words, is to guarantee Mexico's energy self-sufficiency.

The plan implies the national dependence on coal, one of the most polluting industries on the planet.

The air pollution caused by its combustion causes 430 people to die from respiratory diseases in Coahuila alone, according to the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

Relatives of the miners trapped underground await the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Emilio Espejel

“What do I think is going to happen?

Nothing, total impunity”, criticizes Cristina Auerbach, one of the region's leading mining experts and activist in defense of miners' rights.

“These people who own the wells and the caves are still part of what remains of the PRI.

The CFE, which is the one that buys this coal, is from Morena.

If you throw yourself with the PRI you have to sacrifice the CFE and all its discourse on energy sovereignty and the importance of coal.

The PRI [the party of the governor of Coahuila] is not going to catch its own people, so there is going to be impunity,” she says.

The Las Conchas mine, in the municipality of La Agujita, on the outskirts of Sabinas, had been in disuse for almost 40 years.

Its proximity to the river made it a danger, and during the years of abandonment it filled with liters and liters of water.

At the beginning of the year, three wells were opened in the vicinity, without security measures or risk control.

When the miners searched for coal on Wednesday, they found a leak of liquid from the mine, which flooded everything in a matter of minutes.

Five workers were able to save themselves, but another 10 are still underground.

In the area, everyone knows the risk that this work entails, but the lack of job offers beyond the maquilas and construction means that most young men end up inside the tunnels.

"It's no secret, old mines fill with water," explains Auerbach.

"This mine also does not have an environmental impact statement, and if it did, it could not be less than 300 meters away from the river," continues the mining expert.

As long as work continues to be allowed in old mines, this will happen.

They have to finish the concessions in areas that have already been mined.

Never mind the miners,” she concludes.

This Sunday, a miner has died in the collapse of another mine in the State of Nuevo León, in the municipality of Galeana, in the northeast of the country.

An element of the national guard guards one of the pumps for extracting water in the work area of ​​the rescue zone, on August 7, 2022. Emilio Espejel

The Government mobilized a contingent of 400 agents including soldiers from the Army, the National Guard, police and rescue teams.

18 pumps were sent to drain the water from the wells.

In addition, some 60 miners from the community, the colleagues, friends and relatives of the trapped workers, work tirelessly as volunteers.

Divers even came from Mexico City.

But the days have passed without much news and with them the hope of the relatives of seeing the miners alive again is gradually extinguished.

Divers have been there almost since day one, but have not yet ventured into the hole.

The relatives do not understand why, and among themselves they think that it is actually the miners of the area who are going to go down into the tunnels, because of their knowledge of the terrain.

During the night from Saturday to Sunday, cameras were introduced to check the state inside the farm.

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