In El Pinabete the search has been uninterrupted: Laura Velázquez

Jared Laureles

The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, August 3, 2024, p. 7

Two years after the collapse of the El Pinabete mine in Sabinas, Coahuila, the federal government has not spared efforts to recover the bodies of the six workers who remain buried in the coal pit, and if in the remaining two months of the current administration this objective is not achieved, there is the reliable commitment of the virtual president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, to continue with the search efforts, since the priority is to rescue them, said the head of the National Coordination of Civil Protection (CNPC), Laura Velázquez Alzúa.

In an interview with The Daystressed that unlike what happened 18 years ago at the Pasta de Conchos mine, where four days after the explosion rescue activities were suspended without knowing if the 65 miners were still alive, now There is political will and the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has no financial or human limits to help the population facing disaster.

Since the tragedy that occurred in El Pinabete on August 3, 2022, work has been carried out uninterruptedly for 730 days, work is progressing according to schedule and new progress has been made 25 discoveries non-biological relevant items such as shovels, wheelbarrows, a pneumatic gun, glasses, gloves, boots, knee pads and sections of hose that the miners used to bring in oxygen or to extract water, revealed the head of the CNPC.

We have made it very clear that we are prepared to deal with this type of emergency. We have shown that it is possible to go down 60 meters into the mine, or in the case of Pasta de Conchos 150 meters, to find a body and recover it.he highlighted when referring to the rescue and identification, between December and January of this year, of four of the 10 miners who were trapped in the mine located in the El Mezquite community.

Velázquez Alzúa acknowledged that the process has been a complex task, since the main challenge to safely enter was lowering the water levels, in addition to the fact that the work began without having a map of the mine. It does not exist, the miners who entered advanced according to their intuition or need for coal extraction.said.

This x-ray of the mine has been built in collaboration with other agencies involved in the rescue led by the Federal Electricity Commission. The official explained that the entrance to the mine is being done through three fronts and each meter is reinforced with steel and wooden poles, in order to guarantee the safety of the people who enter 60 meters deep, she stressed.

While assuring that the federal government and the CNPC maintain close accompaniment with the workers’ families, the official detailed that the second phase of underground work began in January and that there are currently 150 people carrying out search and rescue work 24 hours a day, although she recalled that at the height of the accident more than 800 elements were deployed.

An open pit was built at the coal mine, and 1,167 perforations and 128 blasting operations supervised by the National Defense Secretariat have been carried out; more than 2,277,000 cubic meters of soil and rock have been excavated and removed, and more than 1.6 million cubic meters of water have been extracted, he said.

The Civil Protection coordinator pointed out that this agency is responsible for preventing an accident or disaster and acting accordingly. To do so, it makes constant rounds throughout the country and warns state governments of the risks that exist in their entities.

Specifically in Coahuila, the greatest danger there is It is the ingress of water and flooding of mines, many of which were abandoned after exhausting their minerals.

Regarding preventive actions in other mines located in the coal region, the official said that there are 11 federal agencies responsible for reviewing the regulatory and legal framework, as well as the safety conditions in these workplaces, mainly the Ministries of Economy and Labor.