“Surge in water level” recorded in flooded coal mine galleries where ten workers were trapped in northern Mexico, complicating the search and rescue operation, authorities said.
The water level in gallery number 2, which rose to 70 centimeters on Friday and would theoretically allow access by members of rescue crews, reached 12.92 meters yesterday, the authorities underlined in a statement, adding that “engineers are assessing the situation on the spot and the reasons for this sudden increase in the water level”.
In galleries 3 and 4, the water level is at 15.5 and 12.5 meters respectively, in other words it rose 8 to 10 meters from the levels recorded on Friday, always according to the announcement.
“Engineers are preparing a new strategy to be able to drain the water from the El Pinabete mine,” the authorities assured.
The news, however, is a very hard blow for the families of the miners, who in recent days have been increasingly expressing their concern that the intervention of the rescue crews will be too late to save their people.
The sister of one of the trapped workers, Magdalena Montelongo, did not hide her frustration yesterday. “I have no idea what their new strategy is going to be,” he told AFP, adding “maybe they lost control of the situation.”
The national coordinator of the Civil Protection and responsible for the operation, Laura Velasquez, was quick to reassure the families with a statement that “the trapped miners will not be abandoned.”
Members of the rescue teams are doing their best in “excellent conditions”, he explained, stressing that the El Pinabete mine is located next to Conchas Norte, a mine that had been abandoned some thirty years ago because “the water level was too high”. .
The Mexican authorities assured on Friday that there were now “conditions” that allowed divers to enter the flooded mine to find the ten missing.
Thanks to its non-stop pumping, the water level had dropped to 70 centimeters in one of the three galleries where the members of the rescue teams need to enter, while it reached 30 meters the day after the incident, on August 3, explained the Minister of Defense Luis Crescencio Santoval.
On Wednesday, an army diver entered one of the galleries (number 4) for a few minutes, but was unable to proceed because he found “obstacles” that prevented it, Coahuila state governor Miguel Riquelme said.
Hundreds of rescue crew members, including armed forces divers, are participating in the operation to locate the missing miners. Relatives’ hopes that they might be found alive have almost vanished given the amount of time that has passed.
According to authorities, the miners were carrying out excavation work on August 3 when a groundwater well was punctured.
The state of Coahuila, where most of the coal is mined in Mexico, has experienced a series of fatal mining accidents over the years. The worst occurred on February 19, 2006, when 65 miners were killed in a gas explosion at Pasta de Conchos.
Source: News Beast
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