The hope is that the miners are in an air bubble

Leopold Ramos

Correspondent

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

Sabinas, Coah., The hope of finding alive the 10 workers who are still trapped in the Pinabete mine remains, but time eats ussaid the state governor, Miguel Ángel Riquelme Solís, while President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stressed that working day and night in the rescue, but the main problem is the flood, although the pumping equipment is sufficient and of the highest capacity.

After the head of the federal Executive highlighted on Twitter that yesterday was a decisive day, because, according to the technicians, it will be known if there is a possibility that the divers will enter without risk to the mine, when taking stock of the situation, Riquelme Solís indicated that What technically has to be done has been done, but logically, time is eating us up. From the first hours the study was done and everything possible is being done technically to extract the water. We can’t do anything else until we get the liquid out and the leak is plugged..

On the possibilities that the workers are alive, from Coahuila, the governor commented: We hope in God to find them, that they are in some air bubble, that they have been able to protect themselves.

Yesterday afternoon, Civil Protection reported on its Twitter account that they introduced a camera in well four to evaluate the existing conditions inside the mine.

Meanwhile, in a statement, the state government announced that during the course of the afternoon and night of Friday it was possible to double the extractive capacity of water, in such a way that the pumping is more than 11 thousand cubic meters per day, according to the estimates of the engineers in charge of the work.

For the rescue work team made up of the Mexican Army, the federal and Coahuila governments, Civil Protection, mining companies in the region and volunteers, the priority is the rescue of the trapped miners, as well as the well-being and safety of the families and actions will not cease until this goal is achievedspecified the state government.

They seek to cover leaks

The adjoining wells, 60 meters deep, are connected by underground passageways that were flooded with 34 meters of water.

Although there are almost 400 rescuers -military, police and civilians- and extraction pumps that do not stop operating, a leak of water that comes from nearby mines does not allow further progressdeclared the Secretary of Labor of the entity, Nazira Zogbi.

He explained that the priority is to identify where the water is filtering. Rescuers are looking a precise point to cover the filtration and for that surgical work a French company has made available both the material and the equipment necessary, added the official, without specifying the name of that firm.

Meanwhile, the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), Marcelo Ebrard, thanked on his social networks the donation of one ton of supplies and emergency care equipment by Direct Relief to support the rescue efforts in Sabinas.

The general director of Political Coordination at the SRE, Ximena Escobedo, stated that the shipment is already on its way from California and will arrive tomorrow to be delivered to the state civil protection authorities.

The head of the Coahuila Attorney General’s Office, Gerardo Márquez, assured that for now the only crime guilty or malicious that can be attributed to the owners of the mine, located in the community of Villa de Agujita, is that of injuries to the workers who were transferred to an IMSS clinic –of the five, three are still hospitalized–, since the hope of finding the other 10 workers alive.

With information from Arturo Sánchez, Ap and Afp