10 miners still trapped underground after three coal pits flooded

by time news

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Nearly 400 rescuers are mobilized to try to save the ten miners stuck for three days, by 60 meters deep, half of which has been flooded.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Sunday (August 7) ​​called on rescuers to do “more” to save the ten miners trapped underground since Wednesday in northeastern Mexico following the collapse and flooding of three coal pits. “We must continue to work to save the miners. We must continue to do what we are doing and more,” the president said during a visit to the scene of the accident in the state of Coahuila.

Nearly 400 rescuers are mobilized to try to save the ten miners stuck 60 meters deep, half of which was flooded. The divers, however, were unable to enter because the water level (34 meters flood) had only dropped by 9.5 meters. The divers “said they did not know when” they could go down, told AFP on the spot Alicia Huerta, sister-in-law of one of the ten miners underground. The emergency services use about twenty pumps. However, experts fear new infiltration from a neighboring mine.

Recurring incidents

Saturday evening, relatives participated in a mass near the improvised camp where they have been meeting since Wednesday, away from the relief area cordoned off by the authorities.

Sole producer of Mexican coal, the state of Coahuila is used to mining tragedies. In June 2021, seven workers died after an underground collapse. On February 19, 2006, 65 miners died when an underground gas pocket exploded at Pasta de Conchos, a mine controlled by conglomerate Grupo México. Sixteen years later, 63 of the 65 bodies are still lying at the bottom of the mine. It has been 16 years that families “demand measures” against accidents “and their appeals have not been heard”, lamented the Society of Jesus, which affirms that the Jesuits accompany the relatives in their request for justice before the authorities. international.

In October 2010 in Chile, 33 workers were able to get out of a copper mine, almost 700 meters deep, in the Atacama desert after 69 days underground and a landslide.

With AFP

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