The frustrating search for the ten miners trapped in Mexico

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A week after the accident, the workers’ families are hopeful and fear that the experts’ hypothesis will become reality, who consider their chances of survival very low.

Despair is mounting among the relatives of miners who were trapped in a coal mine in Mexico for a week. “You go into the pit, but you never know when you will get out. It is darker than the night,” says Josué Rodríguez sadly, who is waiting in the northern region of Coahuila for good news about his father, Margarito, 39, who, along with nine other companions, has had no contact under land since the last day 3, without water or food and, at best, dependent on the air reserves of an underground pocket. His relatives, with their hearts in their fists, fear that the experts’ hypothesis will become reality, who currently consider their chances of survival very low.

Just before the accident, while workers were digging at a depth of 34 meters, an underground river flooded the depot, blocking the exits. After eight days of frustrating waits with no positive news about the event, hopes were rekindled this Tuesday, when rescuers were “hours” away from entering the mine, as noted by Laura Velázquez, national civil defense coordinator. But the rescue teams are faced with adverse conditions and in addition to the danger that the situation for the miners will get worse or even get stuck on the job, the last missions have failed.

In the latest operation, a group of divers that had entered the flooded mine had to abort yesterday due to the risk of collapse and the abundant remains of wood and other obstacles hampering their progress. However, the efforts have not ceased. «Work is never suspended, working 24 hours a day; Our work can be witnessed by the relatives of our miners,” Velázquez said yesterday, saying he hoped the miners could be rescued by Friday. In that sense, he emphasized that 148,460 cubic meters of water have already been extracted, enough volume to partially lower the level so that they “reach levels for rescuers to enter” in one of the three wells. “We understand the urgency, but we have to be very careful not to expose anyone,” he stressed. For his part, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador added that “these activities will continue, the divers will continue to try” to gain access.

Despite the arduous rescue tasks in adverse conditions, the families have lived under constant torture these days. “The miner will always be like this, he will always risk his life day by day, they don’t know if they will return today or tomorrow. That’s the risk they take, but it’s the livelihood of every house, they’ve devoted their entire lives to being miners. These are the words of Sendy Jazmin Torres, accompanied by fear and despair for days, who waits in tears for her brother, Ramiro, to leave the site safe and sound. The miner, aged 24, is the father of a six-year-old girl and a baby just a few days old. The men of the family are dedicated to the same profession. “My other brother and my father are volunteer rescuers,” Sendy says.

Sergio Gabriel Cruz (41) is one of the other faces seen in the Aztec media over the past week. He started working two months ago in the coal mine in Villa de Agüita, Sabinas, although he has been mining minerals for 23 years. His wife and two girls are waiting for him at home. Mario Alberto Cabriales (45), with two children, José Luis Mireles Argüijo (46), is in the same situation with a boy. Hugo Tijerina Amaya (29 years old) was not as lucky as his brother Raymundo, who managed to get out of the well before the collapse.

José Rogelio Moreno Leija, 42, and his son José Rogelio Moreno Morales, 23, worked together at the site and neither managed to get out. They remain with Jorge Luis Martínez (34), who, despite the low wages – miners receive a salary ranging from one thousand to five thousand pesos a week (from 45 to 240 euros) – devoted himself to this job because he insures his only source of work his family.

And every story has a hero. In this case, it could well be Jaime Montelongo Pérez. At the age of 61, he helped two workers out of the pit minutes before the collapse. Although the water was up to his waist, and despite the fact that his colleagues asked him to get to safety, he braced himself and decided to look for the other workers. Unfortunately, he was unable to get out of the deposit, which is called the ‘pocito’ type, very common to extract coal in Coahuila. These are artisanal infrastructures that pose a significant danger to those who work in them because they do not have a concrete structure to protect them from landslides like an industrial mine, explains metallurgical engineer Guillermo Iglesias.

The slowness and inefficiency of the personnel working in the operation has provoked strong criticism against the government of López Obrador, who was received with booing a few days ago during his visit to the place, because many close friends believed that “he only came to take the picture » Despite the difficulty of the situation, the family members maintain hopes of hugging their loved ones as soon as possible, safely and healthily, while the rescue efforts continue.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. The collapse is a reminder of what happened in February 2006 at the Pasta de Conchos mine, also in Coahuila, where 65 workers were killed in an accident and only two bodies were recovered. Last June, another flood at a coal mine in the same region broke through the roof and walls of the mine, trapping seven miners inside. No one got out alive. According to the Pasta de Conchos family, which unites the relatives of the miners who died in 2006, more than 100 people have been killed in the sector since then.

Source: La Verdad

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