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Agujita (Mexico) (AFP) – The authorities assured this Friday that “conditions” exist to enter the mine in northern Mexico where 10 workers were trapped nine days ago by a flood, reviving the hope of their relatives after two days of slow progress.
“We have all the conditions to go down today (…) to the search and rescue” of the miners, said the national coordinator of Civil Protection, Laura Velázquez, during the morning conference of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Since then, the Defense Secretariat’s disaster response team “has made three descents to well 2” to remove “elements that obstruct the entry of rescuers,” according to a tweet from Civil Protection.
Earlier, it was reported that the water level in said well had reached 70 centimeters, compared to 30 meters a day after the accident, already within the range that the authorities consider viable to maneuver, which is 1.5 meters.
In the other two wells, the elevation is 3.9 and 4.7 meters, explained Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval.
Velázquez explained that the operation is possible thanks to “97% extraction of the water” that flooded the coal mine in the town of Agujita (Coahuila state, north).
“The necessary resources are prepared to start the search and rescue efforts,” he insisted.
Soldiers deployed in the area increased security in the perimeter closest to well 2, restricting the access of reporters, the AFP news agency found.
“I wish there was a miracle”
“With that level you can already enter. God willing, yes,” said David Huerta, 35, brother-in-law of one of the trapped workers.
Although he has already abandoned the hard work of mining in the so-called “pocitos”, a risky and traditional method of extracting coal, Huerta says that he dedicated himself to it for almost 13 years.
He explained that at the bottom of the wells is the zone of the “plate” of the mineral, where the underground galleries or tunnels are deployed in which the extraction itself is carried out and where the workers are probably located.
Armando Ontiveros, one of the volunteer miners supporting the rescuers, is eager to participate in this work.
“If the plate, the gallery, is collapsed, you have to clean, clean up to be able to advance to where they are. If they are there, how good!”, he told journalists.
Ontiveros, 47 years old -27 of whom have worked in wells- affirmed that “there is hope” because in tunnels there are sometimes higher spaces “where the water does not reach.”
“Hopefully there is a miracle or something and they are there alive,” he added.
The Civil Protection coordinator reported that the pumping of water will continue, but using smaller pumps. “It’s a slow process, but we don’t want to take any chances,” she said.
prayers and songs
The government’s announcement restores hope to the community around the damaged mine, where on Thursday night a group of some 15 women arrived walking with candles in their hands and singing religious songs.
Already at the site they prayed an Our Father and prayed for the rescue to be successful.
The accident occurred on August 3, when a wall of a flooded and abandoned mine collapsed, causing the flooding of the shaft where 15 miners were maneuvering. Five of them managed to escape.
Mining accidents are frequent in Coahuila, Mexico’s main coal producer.
The most serious occurred on February 19, 2006, when a gas explosion at the Pasta de Conchos mine, controlled by the conglomerate Grupo México, caused the death of 65 workers. Only two bodies were recovered.
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