Mexico gives up hope of saving miners, plans to recover their bodies

Mexican authorities announced today an 11-month plan to search and recover the bodies of ten coal miners who were trapped underground a month ago, which means they admit they have given up hope of saving these men alive.

The authorities' shift in efforts to search for the bodies came after the collapse of a tunnel wall, which flooded the Pinabeti mine in the northern border state of Coahuila on August 3, prompting the authorities to launch a series of rescue operations that lasted for weeks and around the clock in order to extract water from the mine and rescue workers.

The head of the National Electric Power Company, Manuel Bartlett, told reporters, during a visit to the mine, yesterday, that a plan was underway to create an open pit to retrieve the bodies of the miners.

"We have a clear mandate from the president...to begin immediately, through this hole, to locate and recover the bodies of the workers who lost their lives here," Bartlett said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador for the first time indicated the government's shift from rescue efforts to searching and recovering bodies on August 28 when he spoke of a plan in the works to "get bodies out of the mine."

In a statement issued yesterday, the National Electric Power Company explained the details of the process of exhuming the bodies by extracting 5.6 million cubic meters of materials inside an open pit in the mine, which is expected to be 450 meters long, 320 meters wide, and 60 meters deep.

The company said that the entire process will take place in six phases, taking 11 months.

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