Rescue of Mexican workers trapped in mine could take up to a year

This Thursday (25), the authorities of the Civil Protection of the Mexico presented the families of the 10 miners trapped in Coahuila with three options for rescuing the workers. They were stranded after a coal mine collapsed on 3 August.

The national coordinator of Civil Porteção, Laura Velázquez , detailed the three rescue possibilities:

1. An open pit project, in which a pit would be opened to enter the mine with an inclined access ramp, accompanied by constant pumping of water. This option would provide greater security conditions for search and rescue actions, said Laura;
2. Application of control screens, a kind of physical barrier to contain fluids between the tunnel and the adjacent mine, an action also combined with water pumping;
3. A combination of open pit with control screens.

One of the family members told CNN that the government does not know what it is doing and that the plans offered take longer than expected.

“They don’t know what they’re doing. They are making the operation even more time consuming. For what? So that people get tired. And as I said, we are going to stay here until they take not only mine, but the 10”, said one of the wives, who revealed that she was in disbelief with the rescue. “I don’t think it will work,” she lamented.

According to her, when the plans were presented, the government gave a period of 9 months to a year for the completion of the operation.

The ten miners were trapped inside the Pinabete mine in the city of Sabinas, in the northwestern state of Coahuila, on August 3 when their coal excavation work caused the wall of an adjacent mine to collapse, which was flooded. . Then the water overflowed and reached the tunnel the workers were in.