Leopoldo Ramos
Correspondent
The newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, September 11, 2024, p. 15
Sabinas, Coah., 98 days after the start of the second phase of recovery of the workers trapped in the El Pinabete mine, new bone remains were found, authorities reported.
Laura Velázquez Alzúa, head of the National Coordination of Civil Protection (CNPC), said that the discovery activated the recovery protocols, and although it was not confirmed if the bones are related to previous discoveries, analyses will be carried out to determine their origin.
The Attorney General’s Office of the State of Coahuila (FGEC) will be in charge of safeguarding and identifying the fragments to provide certainty to the workers’ families.
Following the location, the Unified Command, made up of the CNPC, the Federal Electricity Commission, the National Defense Secretariat and the FGEC, met to define the next exploration and recovery strategies.
Velázquez Alzúa reiterated that the main objective of the operation is to find and identify the remaining miners trapped in the mine.
The accident at El Pinabete occurred on August 3, 2022, when 10 miners were trapped due to a flash flood that filled the tunnels after a barrier holding back accumulated water in an abandoned mine was accidentally pierced.
So far, authorities have managed to recover the remains of six workers.