Optimism among relatives due to the increase in water extracted

Leopold Ramos

Correspondent

Newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, August 7, 2022, p. 4

Sabinas, Coah., Any movement by authorities and workers at the flooded El Pinabete coal mine serves to maintain hope of finding the 10 miners who have been trapped underground for four days.

Installed in improvised camps, the relatives of the workers, among whom are children, showed a renewed optimism on Saturday morning. Since last Wednesday, when the mine located in the community of Agujita collapsed, they have kept a vigil around the disaster site, sleeping on plastic chairs, with coats and blankets spread out on the dusty ground, waiting to learn more about the disaster. status of your loved ones.

The other two days (previous) we did not see that there was any progress in the water, but right now we see that a lot has come out in various parts that have been excavatedElva Hernández, mother-in-law of one of the trapped workers, told AFP.

We still hope that they are somewhere high (inside the mine), although it is too much water, but trusting in God…added this 71-year-old woman, accompanied by her grandson.

Jaime Montelongo Pérez, husband of María Elena Chávez, is one of the workers who did not manage to get out and since then they have been trapped more than 60 meters deep.

María Elena recovers her faith every day and insists that at any moment the rescue brigades will enter to search for and bring the workers to the surface.

Although the possibility of finding them alive seems increasingly remote, the relatives cling to the comments of some of the survivors and to the possibility that the miners have found an air bubble.

Those who managed to climb up and know the terrain said that there was an air pocket in (an area called) La Campana. So, if (the water) swept them to the side of the Bell, there is hopeassured Blanca Rivera, who has two cousins ​​in the mine.

We are already tired, desperate, but with a little hopeCecilia Cruz seconded, adding that she had heard of such accidents in her native Coahuila for decades before the collapse that trapped her 42-year-old nephew, Sergio Cruz.

The risk of mud-filled tunnels collapsing could make it impossible for rescue teams, even if the flood water is removed, he said. Do you want to risk more lives? It would be a bigger tragedyhe claimed.

As desperation grew, some, like Santiago Cecilio Moreno – with his brother and nephew trapped – tried to encourage the rest and were willing to go down with the divers.

I tell the relatives to calm down because we have to wait. Moreno stressed that, although the military has more experience in diving, he can collaborate because he knows better how to operate down there and he is not afraid.

Héctor Díaz is one of the three workers who are still hospitalized. He tells how he heard a noise, then felt a gust of wind and saw how the shaft where they were working was flooded in seconds.

He also saw that his companions were overwhelmed by the water. To his good luck, he reached for an air tube attached to one of the blasts, and was then swept away by the force of the torrent until he reached the surface.

I thought: the water has to lift meand so it was, in seconds he was on the surface guided by the hose until he was able to come out in another well located 60 meters from where he entered.

With information from Reuters, Afp and Ap