MEXICO CITY (AP) – Wood, concrete elements and waves in water that are still high block wells and prevent views from the interior of a mine in northern Mexico, where 10 miners have been stranded for six days.
According to a report presented Tuesday by Laura Velazquez, the national coordinator for civil defence, the underwater drone could not enter one of the wells because there were piles of wood and in the other it only reached where the water was able to sink. Started without water.
These conditions lead to waiting for a few more days until the rescue teams enter the wells whose water level has fallen but is still between 10 and 16 metres.
Miners were trapped in a coal mine in the Sabinas Municipality in the northern state of Coahuila on the afternoon of August 3, when they came across an old mine that was filled with water and caused flooding when it collapsed. In these shafts the miners usually work without work and for this reason accidents of this type are not uncommon.
The force of the water bursting into the wells, which are intertwined, was such that it drove out five of the 15 miners working outside, who managed to survive and were about to alert the authorities.
The Coahuila government said in a statement Monday night that water was still seeping into the wells, reaching 34 meters of the floodplain, although that water input has been reduced.
In addition, more holes are being drilled to introduce new pumps and increase extraction flow.
President Andres Manuel López Obrador said rescuers would be able to go down if there is a meter or a meter and a half of water.
The families have been stationed on the outskirts of the mine for almost a week, where they await the news with growing pains.
Time has passed and the miners are finding it increasingly difficult to survive due to obstructions in the shaft, but officials do not wish to comment on the matter.
Both the state and federal prosecutor’s offices have launched separate investigations to search for people suspected of being responsible for the accident.
The Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) stressed that these “predictable disasters” cannot be called accidents because, in their opinion, “they are the result of the corruption, illegality and impunity in which mining companies operate”. in the Coahuila Coalfield.
According to what the group condemned in a statement, there was evidence that the mine was flooded because the excavations had leaked water, but traders ordered them to work in those wells and the authorities allowed it. Gave.
REMA condemned that “terrible working conditions” are tolerated in that coalfield. He also lamented that the condition of the coal-fired mines for the state company Federal Electricity Commission had not improved, even after the death of 65 miners in 2006 at Pasta de Conchos, also in Coahuila.
