Relatives await rescue of bodies 16 years after the explosion in Pasta de Conchos

jared laurels

Newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, February 19, 2022, p. 8

On the 16th anniversary of the Pasta de Conchos tragedy in which 65 miners died, the families continue to cry out for justice and ask that the rescue efforts undertaken by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) and the Federal Electricity Commission participate those of the region for being more experienced in the coal mine.

Fernando Acosta, technical representative of a group of relatives of miners, warned that in this time there has been endurance to comply with labor laws, for which he demanded that those responsible for the accident be punished and that there be no impunity for Grupo Mexico.

The objective, he stressed, is that these types of cases are not repeated, because after Pasta de Conchos there continue to be accidents. He recalled that in June of last year another seven workers died in Coahuila after being trapped inside the Micarán mine, in the municipality of Múzquiz, which collapsed due to a flood.

We do not want more widows, more orphans, we already lived itsaid Tomasita Martínez, still hoping to recover the remains of her husband Reyes Cuevas Silva, who was 43 years old when the explosion occurred in the municipality of San Juan de Sabinas.

The widow commented that must be the miners themselves those involved in the rescue efforts. There are many here who are aware of the problem and who were their colleagues, they know the minesaid.

Acosta has been head of the rescue squads of the Mining Union since the tragedy, in February 2006. In the following days they managed to rescue two bodies and, he explained, they were close to reaching the rest, but Germán Larrea, owner of Grupo México, in complicity with the PAN government Vicente Fox, decided to suspend work just five days later and leave the workers for dead.

In 2008 the engineer attempted an independent rescue together with his companions, two widows and a photographer. They went down to 1,500 meters inland and 250 deep. They carried devices that never detected that there was methane gas inside.

Two years later they were evicted, when we were about, on diagonal 20, to rescue the bodies; however, in their work, they managed to collect photographic and documentary evidence that confirmed that the company’s arguments for suspending work were false.

Acosta indicated that the proposal has already been made to the CFE for the miners to collaborate in the rescue. For us it is very important that all those who participate in the rescue be unionized, so that they can defend their rights and so that they are demanding security, which is the main problem from the coal region of Coahuila.

Tomasita Martínez stressed that in 16 years they have resisted because the Mining Union, headed by Napoleón Gómez Urrutia, He has always supported us and was attentive since the accident happened.