Dozens of rescuers fought Thursday to free 10 workers trapped at a flooded coal mine in northern Mexico, where desperate relatives awaited news more than 24 hours after a collapse.
As night fell again in the state of Coahuila, family members cried and comforted each other as hope of finding survivors dwindled by the hour.
“We want them to recover the bodies,” Angelica Montelongo said with a sad and weary look before feeling new hope that her brother Jaime could be saved.
“But hey, God willing, right? You have to trust that they are alive,” she said.
Soldiers, rescue workers and rescue dogs have been deployed to hit Mexico’s main coal-producing region following the recent mine disaster at Agujita, in the municipality of Sabinas.
“What I want with all my heart is that we save the miners,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told reporters in Mexico City.
“We must not lose faith. We must not lose hope,” he added.
Five miners escaped alive after Wednesday’s collapse and were taken to hospital, said Laura Velazquez, national civil defense coordinator, adding that two had been discharged.
“Time is of the essence here,” she said.
Authorities said the mine’s three shafts descended 60 meters (200 feet) and the flood water inside was 34 meters deep.
“It’s complicated,” Velazquez said.
But authorities were making progress and pumping out water “to save the miners as soon as possible,” she added.
– “Not Much Hope” –
Around 230 army and other government employees have been dispatched to the site, which is about 1,130 kilometers (700 miles) north of Mexico City, according to the Defense Department.
Multiple pumps were deployed to deal with the flooding, but Lopez Obrador urged the national water agency to send more equipment.
“Unfortunately, there isn’t much hope,” Jose Luis Amaya, whose cousin was among those trapped, told Milenio TV.
Experts and relatives painted a picture of a precarious and risky profession that extracts coal from the mines with lax safety standards.
“There’s always job insecurity … and danger,” said Blasa Maribel Navarro, whose cousin Sergio Cruz mined coal for several years to support his two daughters.
Navarro said she still hopes to see him alive “because we trust in God.”
Roughly constructed mines like the one that collapsed don’t have concrete reinforcements to protect workers from a collapse, engineering expert Guillermo Iglesias said.
The miners “dig a shaft two meters in diameter and keep digging until they reach a small layer of coal,” he told local radio.
The only thing supporting the surrounding earth is usually a large plastic tube that workers enter through, he added.
The Coahuila state government said miners were digging when they encountered an adjacent area full of water, causing the shaft to collapse and flood.
Coahuila has seen a number of fatal mining accidents over the years.
Last year, seven miners died when trapped in the region.
The worst accident was an explosion that killed 65 people at the Pasta de Conchos mine in 2006.
Only two bodies were rescued after this tragedy and the families have repeatedly asked the Mexican authorities to recover them.
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