Europe 1 with AFP 5:59 p.m., August 10, 2022
In a Mexican mine, ten miners have been missing for six days.
The country's government has announced that the drop in the water level thanks to the incessant pumping raises hopes that rescuers will be able to enter it soon.
Several hundred rescuers, including soldiers and army divers, are involved in the rescue.
The drop in the water level thanks to the incessant pumping gives rise to hopes that rescuers will be able to enter the flooded Mexican mine on Wednesday or Thursday to find ten miners who have been missing for six days, the government announced on Tuesday.
Images collected by an underwater drone equipped with a camera on Monday showed that obstacles and currents still made it too risky to send divers to the depths of the Agujita mine, in the state of Coahuila (north ), said the National Civil Defense Coordinator, Laura Velazquez.
Waiting for the water level to drop
Officials prefer to wait for the water level to drop another 1.50 m to allow "divers and rescuers to be able to enter", President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told the press on Tuesday.
Several hundred rescuers, including army soldiers and divers, are taking part in the rescue to save the miners, whose loved ones are growing increasingly worried as time goes on.
>> READ ALSO
- Mexico: a journalist murdered, the 12th since the beginning of the year
Efforts are focused on pumping the water present in the mine, which is 60 meters deep.
According to the authorities, the miners were carrying out excavation work when they broke through a water table.
Coahuila, Mexico's main coal-producing region, has seen a series of deadly mining incidents over the years.
The worst accident occurred at the Pasta de Conchos mine in 2006 when a firedamp explosion killed 65 miners.