Efforts to rescue 10 miners trapped underground at a coal mine in the Coahuila state of Mexico for more than a week have grown more complicated now that the operation has suffered additional flooding atop the initial water inundation.
According to Al Jazeera, water in the shaft at the El Pinabete mine was 38 meters (125 feet) deep on Monday, versus 1.3 m (4.2 ft) the prior day, according to Civil Defense National Coordinator Laura Velazquez.
A mine rescue team had been preparing to enter the workings to locate the miners missing since August 3 when an excavation incident into flooded neighboring workings filled the mine with water.
“This sudden entry forced us to stop the whole entry plan,” Velazquez said, noting a video camera lowered into the shaft revealed debris of pipes and cables floating in “extremely murky water” within the mine.
Meanwhile, families of the missing are growing frustrated with the slow nature of the rescue, engineers are planning to seal off the Pinabete and Conchas Norte mines from one another while continuing to pump water out of Pinabete.
Five workers were able to escape from the mine in Sabinas on the day of the event. No signs of life have been reported from the others, the new report said, as hundreds of rescuers remain on-site.
“We’re not going to stop working to rescue the miners,” Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.Source: Al Jazeera