The President of Mexico asks the rescuers for "more efforts" to find people trapped underground.
Following the collapse and flooding of three coal shafts, ten miners have been trapped underground in the northeast of the country since Wednesday.
“We must continue to work to save the miners.
We must continue to do what we are doing and more,” said President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador during a visit to the scene of the accident in the state of Coahuila.
"I want it to be as soon as possible," he added to reporters.
Ten miners stuck 60 meters deep
“I'll see how the rescue goes.
I will realize the situation, “said the president announcing his visit to Agujita in the locality of Las Sabinas.
Nearly 400 rescuers are mobilized to try to save the ten miners stuck 60 meters deep, half of which was flooded.
The president had spoken on Saturday of a “decisive” day for rescue operations: “We will know if there is the possibility that divers can enter (into the mine) without risk.
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The divers, however, were unable to enter on Saturday because the water level (34 meters flood) had only dropped by 9.5 meters.
The divers "said they didn't know when" they could go down, said Alicia Huerta, sister-in-law of one of the 10 miners underground.
The emergency services use about twenty pumps.
However, experts fear new infiltration from a neighboring mine.
A recurring situation
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.
Families have been "demanding measures" against accidents for sixteen years "and their appeals have not been heard", lamented the Society of Jesus, which affirms that the Jesuits accompany 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.
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