Coahuila: ‘We ask for more expert machinery and people,’ a family member of a miner tells RFI

First modification: 08/16/2022 – 11:37

“Many days have passed. (The rescuers) tell us: ‘we are going to go down, the water is going down, the machines this, the machines that’. It is a very difficult wait. That is why we raised our voices on Saturday. we gathered six families and went out to the media to ask for help. We asked for more machinery.’

This tells RFI Perla Martínez, sister of Jorge Luis Martínez Valdez, one of the 10 miners trapped in Coahuila. But does she still hold out hope of finding them alive?

“Hope is first of all God. But then there is less hope that they will be alive. Many days have already passed.”

Family members take turns day and night at the gates of the mine. They not only ask for more specialized machinery, but also more trained personnel in this type of rescue operations.

“We are afraid that they will shelve this. We don’t want that. They say: ‘we are going to stay here, we are going to get them out, but give us time.’ On Monday there was the possibility of entering because there was less than a meter of water. But they didn’t. They didn’t. That’s why we’re asking for help. We want more machinery, more experienced people who aren’t afraid to go down (to rescue them). We, like them, know it’s dangerous, but with all the necessary equipment, I I know that they would dare to go down, so we risk asking for help through you, the media.”

And the Mexican president? What do you think of López Obrador’s visit?

“Well, he was there, right, but he didn’t talk to people what he had to talk about, he wasn’t able to give encouragement and encouragement to people, right. We didn’t want everyone to cry, but rather to give us that hope of that the same thing was not going to happen here as in Pasta de Conchos”.

“Concho Pasta”. This is how another mining disaster that occurred in 2006 in the region is known: 65 miners were buried on that occasion.

Since then, relatives demand clarification of what happened. Only now and after having passed at the request of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Mexican government was forced to start an exhaustive excavation with the intention of looking for the bodies. This operation should conclude in August 2024.