Posted on 08/16/2022 12:11:18 PM PDT by texas booster
Efforts to rescue 10 miners trapped underground at a coal mine in the Coahuila state of Mexico for more than a week have grown more complicated now that the operation has suffered additional flooding atop the initial water inundation.
According to Al Jazeera, water in the shaft at the El Pinabete mine was 38 meters (125 feet) deep on Monday, versus 1.3 m (4.2 ft) the prior day, according to Civil Defense National Coordinator Laura Velazquez.
A mine rescue team had been preparing to enter the workings to locate the miners missing since August 3 when an excavation incident into flooded neighboring workings filled the mine with water.
“This sudden entry forced us to stop the whole entry plan,” Velazquez said, noting a video camera lowered into the shaft revealed debris of pipes and cables floating in “extremely murky water” within the mine.
Meanwhile, families of the missing are growing frustrated with the slow nature of the rescue, engineers are planning to seal off the Pinabete and Conchas Norte mines from one another while continuing to pump water out of Pinabete.
Five workers were able to escape from the mine in Sabinas on the day of the event. No signs of life have been reported from the others, the new report said, as hundreds of rescuers remain on-site.
“We’re not going to stop working to rescue the miners,” Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.
Coahuila Attorney General Gerardo Marquez said his office has requested information from the landowner and mine concession holder but declined to name either of them.
Coahuila is the primary coal producing area in Mexico. It has seen a number of fatal mining accidents, the most recent being in 2021 when seven miners were killed at an operation owned by Henan Hebi Coal and Electricity.
That incident was classified as an “accidental outburst” and the bodies of seven initially called missing were eventually located and recovered.
Prayers up for those trapped.
Evil coal strikes again
Hard working people. Prayers for them.
Yes.
“Prayers up for those trapped.”
I think it is too late for that.
Prayers for a miracle then.
I don’t know anything about that mine, but if they couldn’t reach fairly extensive workings above the flooding, they probably died. It’s been almost two weeks, and even a good-sized air pocket would have been used up.
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