Mexico’s efforts to save 10 miners, who were trapped in a flooded coal mine 13 days ago, suffered a new setback as groundwater levels rose, authorities said on Monday.
Miners were trapped underground at the Pinabete mine in northern Mexico’s Coahuila state on Aug. 3 when their excavation work caused a tunnel wall to collapse, triggering flooding.
The rising water level came from the nearby Conchas Norte mine, which closed due to a flood in 1996 and has since accumulated almost 2 million cubic meters of water, said Laura Velázquez, national coordinator for Civil Protection in Mexico.
Engineers now plan to isolate the Pinabete and Conchas Norte mines from each other, while continuing to pump water from the former, Velázquez said.
Last week, the Mexican authorities managed to reduce the amount of water in Pinabete, in the municipality of Sabinas, which had initially reached 30 meters. However, on Monday the water levels reached the height they were at the time of the collapse, reaching more than 41 meters in one of the wells.
On Sunday, a rescue team was preparing to descend into one of the mine shafts when the water rose again, Velázquez said.
“This sudden entry made the entire entry plan stop,” Velázquez said at the government’s morning press conference. A video camera lowered into the well revealed remnants of pipes and cables floating in “extremely cloudy water,” he added.
An attempt to enter the mine last week, when the water level was lower, was also thwarted by debris and darkness.
María Guadalupe Cabriales, the sister of trapped miner Margarito Cabriales, said in an interview outside the mine that delays in rescue efforts had dampened her optimism.
“It’s going to take a while to get my brother out… What hope do we have left?”
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