▲ Part of the personnel participating in the operations to rescue 10 miners who were trapped in a flooded well 13 days ago, in the community of Agujita, in the municipality of Sabinas, in Coahuila.Photo Afp
Emir Olivares and Alonso Urrutia
Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, August 17, 2022, p. 13
The federal government will request the support of experts from Germany and the United States to define more precise actions in the rescue of the 10 workers trapped for two weeks in the El Pinabete coal mine, in Sabinas, Coahuila, reported the national coordinator of Civil Protection. Laura Velazquez.
Meanwhile, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador urged the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) to investigate the reasons why the concession for the operation of this mine was granted during Vicente Fox’s six-year term, even though there is another one nearby. that was canceled years ago due to a flood. He warned that some politicians are already buzzing for pull out raja
of the tragedy with a view to next year’s elections in the entity.
During yesterday’s morning conference at the National Palace, Velázquez presented by video call from Sabinas the daily report on the operations to rescue the miners, 13 days after the accident that left them trapped, and indicated that the families’ request for Go to an outside opinion.
Mr. President, I inform you that, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, directly from Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, we will be contacting two foreign companies, one is located in Germany and the other in the United States, we will talk today (yesterday) with them to find out which one can give us the best opinion, the broadest, taking into account the conditions of our mine.
fruitless work
This decision comes after the work of the first days was unsuccessful due to the recent incident, early Sunday morning, with a new sudden income
of thousands of liters of water from the adjacent mine, Las Conchas Norte, which placed the flood levels in the three wells at 39 to 41 meters, higher than the 34 registered on the day of the accident, August 3. This happened just when everything was being prepared for the rescuers’ action and forced them to outline a new rescue strategy.
Until yesterday morning, said the official, the works completed 303 hours uninterrupted
and there were 13 pumps that extract 437 liters per second. Geophysical surveys were also carried out to determine the sites to inject cement in order to build a wall between the two mines and prevent further seepage.
The federal president, for his part, remarked: This mine was concessioned by Fox and, if we are living through what happened, strictly speaking, the concession should not have been granted. How is a concession awarded next to a canceled, flooded mine with a huge surface area? The prosecution has to investigate these unfortunate events, and we continue with the policy of not giving concessions. We have not granted a single concession, and in the neoliberal governments, (there were) 120 million hectares under concession for mining
.
He asked the population of Coahuila not to let themselves be manipulated, because “they are already buzzing. There are going to be elections in Coahuila; then, they will want to… because that is the worst yet, the lack of moral scruples. They are part of the corruption regime that leads to these misfortunes, and still in an opportunistic way they traffic in the pain of the people, they take out political raja”.