Return to the starting point.
The rescue of the 10 miners trapped since August 3 in a coal pit in Sabinas, Coahuila, has suffered a setback that is difficult to overcome in the early hours of Monday.
The water that floods the galleries, whose drainage has become the main objective for the last 13 days - a necessary requirement for the rescue teams to be able to descend into the mine - has returned to its original levels after a new "sudden ingress". of water”, according to the person in charge of Civil Protection, Laura Velázquez.
On Friday, the water level was 72 centimeters in one of the wells, 2.6 meters in another and 4.2 meters in the third.
“The last cut we have is 38.49 meters in well two;
41.04 in well three and 38.14 in well four”, indicated Velázquez.
The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has indicated in his press conference this Monday that the mine "collapsed even more."
“We were doing well, but a water hole from the neighboring, abandoned mine, which is the one that accumulates the most water, widened.
And when we were draining the water from the coal mine, where the 10 miners are trapped, the volumes of water increased again."
The workers were working in three coal pits opened earlier this year, an operation known as El Pinabete.
Just a few meters away is Las Conchas, an old mine abandoned in 1996, according to Civil Protection.
The proximity of Las Conchas to the Sabinas river caused that during the years of disuse it was flooded with water, which on August 3 also made its way to the neighboring galleries of Pinabete.
“For 28 years, water was accumulated”, Velázquez maintained, “an approximate calculation of the volume retained is 1.9 million cubic meters.
(...) At the beginning of the search work, the average [water] height in the Pinabete mine shafts was measured at 41.47 meters.
After 11 days of work, the average was 3.15 meters.
But this was affected yesterday, at 5:45 in the morning there was a sudden entry of water from the Conchas Nortes mine due to the possible release of accumulated water from a canyon.
At four in the morning we had 1.30 centimeters of water level, we were preparing to enter through well two, but this sudden entry stopped the whole plan.
Relatives of the miners trapped during a procession in Sabinas. ANTONIO OJEDA
The worst fear of the families of the victims is being consumed.
In the air of the makeshift camp where they wait floats the ghost of Pasta de Conchos, an explosion in a mine in the area in 2006 that left 65 miners dead.
63 of their bodies were never recovered and remain under the rubble of what were once the galleries.
His name is evoked over and over again among the relatives with terror: it is the extreme they do not want to reach, that each day that passes without news of the workers draws closer.
On Friday, Civil Protection planned to go down to the mine and start the rescue, as they claimed to have drained 97% of the water from the tunnels.
But during the weekend the rescue stalled, and this new setback is a difficult blow to bear.
Today is the thirteenth day that the 10 men remain incommunicado in the coal pit, 60 meters below ground.
They have no drinking water, food, or electricity.
Their relatives do not know if they are alive or dead and the few hopes that remained are consumed little by little.
More and more relatives accept the improbability of a live rescue, and now only ask that the body of their loved ones be returned to them so they can bury it.
Don't let Pasta de Conchos repeat itself.
“I have given instructions to reinforce the entire rescue plan.
They are pumping around 290 liters per second.
We are going to increase the pumping and the engineers are making a proposal to make a kind of barrier from one mine to the other, and stop the water.
We are going to intensify the work.
I send a hug to the relatives of the miners.
Velázquez, for his part, has indicated that the drainage of water in the collapsed wells is maintained.
“Eight pumps have been installed in nine holes, in total there are 14 pumps installed, providing an output flow of 371 liters per second.
The total volume of water released until yesterday is almost 250,000 cubic meters.
The conditions inside the wells are maintained, yesterday an underwater drone inspected well number two, an attempt was made to enter two galleries, however, they were obstructed by material from the mine.”
The person in charge of Civil Protection has pointed out that it is going to produce a change in the rescue strategy, which consists of “continuing with the permanent pumping in wells of the Pinabete mine;
identify areas with cavities due to underground mining;
to carry out the drilling of 20 six-inch holes to a depth of 60 meters in the galleries of the Conchas Norte mine and to inject cement through the perforations in the galleries of the coal plate for its sealing”.
On Saturday, for the first time, the relatives of the trapped miners appeared together before the press to ask for help, "either from Mexico or abroad."
They accused the opacity of the authorities, the lack of information.
They felt cheated and requested the relief of Velázquez at the command of the rescue operation.
“Imagine, [the families] are already well worn out, ten days and nothing,” said Javier Rodríguez Palomares, brother of Margarito Rodríguez, one of the trapped workers.
Now there are 13 days that have passed and everything is back to how it was at the beginning.
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