A soldier descended this Wednesday for a few moments in the flooded mine in northern Mexico, where ten miners have been missing for a week, the local governor announced.
AFP journalists on the spot saw a soldier equipped with an oxygen bottle, but dressed in his uniform and a helmet, descend into one of the wells aboard a sort of metal basket, and rise to the surface a few minutes later.
Coahuila state governor Miguel Riquelme later tweeted that one of the military divers had descended into shaft number 4 of the coal mine, but had run into "
obstacles to be able to enter the galleries
.
“
The pumping work will continue so that they can enter again and continue the search and rescue
,” he added.
Read alsoMinors stranded in Mexico: hope of being able to send divers
The Civil Protection coordinator, Laura Velazquez, had previously indicated that "
all the rescuers are equipped and ready to enter at any time
" in the mine, deep about 60 meters, after sightings carried out by an underwater drone. .
Several hundred people are taking part in the rescue to save the minors, whose relatives are increasingly worried as time goes by.
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 fatal mining accidents over the years.
The worst happened in the Pasta de Conchos mine in 2006 when a gas explosion killed 65 miners.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/474JJ4Z6KZH4PIIAFG2EAAGS74.jpg)
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/T33TJNCEGND2TOYVTBVZRQJBAE.jpg)
