An altar, candles and a photo of Jaime Montelongo, one of the miners trapped in Agujita, Coahuila state, Mexico, August 14, 2022 (AFP/Pedro PARDO)
The rescue of 10 people trapped in a flooded mine in Mexico suffered a serious setback on Sunday after authorities announced a ‘sudden rise in water levels’, dashing the hopes of relatives who are demanding those responsible be rescued. punished if the death of minors should be confirmed.
“The main culprits and criminals are the owners of the shafts” of the mine, said Magdalena Montelongo, sister of Jaime, one of those trapped since August 3.
“It is a crime that cannot go unpunished. If my brother and his colleagues do not come out alive, it is a crime”, she denounced during an improvised press conference near the rescue zone , emphasizing the “very poor working conditions”.
The accident at the El Pinabete mine, located in the state of Coahuila, Mexico’s main coal producer, is the latest in a series of accidents in the region, often caused by poor safety conditions.
The water level in well No. 2, which had stood at 70 cm until Friday and could allow emergency access, reached 12.92 m on Sunday, the authorities said in a press release, adding that “Engineers are assessing the situation on site and the reasons for this sudden rise in the water level”.
At wells 3 and 4, the water reached 15.5m and 12.5m respectively, up 8 to 10m from levels recorded on Friday. “Engineers will put in place a new strategy capable of allowing the evacuation of water from the El Pinabete mine,” assured the authorities.
The National Relief Coordinator and head of the operation, Laura Velázquez, hastened to assure the families in a press release that “the trapped minors will not be abandoned”.
– Rescuers “lost time” –
This news nevertheless represents a particularly hard blow for the families of the minors who expressed the fear of an intervention too late to save their loved ones.
Plutarco Ruiz, father-in-law of a trapped miner, said authorities had “wasted time” because “from the start” they should have extracted water from the mine.
Since Saturday, the relatives of the miners have said they feel “desperate” by the slow progress of the rescue, while expressing their mistrust vis-à-vis the management of the operations.
Coordinator Laura Velázquez told relatives of the miners that the rescuers are doing their best in “exceptional conditions”, pointing out that the El Pinabete mine was close to that of Conchas Norte, abandoned about thirty years ago, a period in which “its water level has become very high”.
Mexican authorities announced on Friday that the “conditions” had been met for rescuers to enter the flooded mine, in search of 10 missing miners.
Thanks to the incessant pumping, the water level was lowered to 70 centimeters in one of the three wells among which the emergency services had to try to penetrate, whereas it was 30 meters the day after the accident, on 3 August, Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said.
On Wednesday, a diver had entered one of the wells but had been unable to advance because he had encountered “obstacles to be able to enter the galleries”, according to the governor of the state of Coahuila, Miguel Riquelme.
Several hundred people are taking part in the rescue, in particular with an underwater drone, to save the minors whose relatives are increasingly worried as time goes by.
According to authorities, the miners were carrying out excavation work on August 3 when they broke through a water table.
Coahuila, Mexico’s main coal-producing region, has seen a series of fatal mining accidents over the years. The worst happened in the Pasta de Conchos mine in 2006 when a gas explosion killed 65 miners.
© 2022 AFP
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