Mexico prepares to begin underground search for trapped miners
Mexico City Mexican authorities said Friday they were finally in a position to begin searching a flooded coal mine where 10 workers have been trapped for more than a week, offering fresh hope to anguished relatives.
“We have all the conditions to go down there today… to search for and rescue” the miners, civil defense national coordinator Laura Velazquez said.
Velazquez said the rescue operation would become possible once “97 percent of the water” has been extracted from the 60-meter (200-feet) deep mine in Agujita in the northern Coahuila state.
“The necessary resources for the search and rescue have been prepared,” she said by video link during President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s daily news conference.
The water level in one of the three vertical shafts that rescuers will try to enter has been reduced to 70 centimeters (27 inches), from more than 30 meters initially, Defense Minister Luis Cresensio Sandoval said.
The other two shafts still have 3.9 and 4.7 meters of water.
Authorities consider 1.5 meters to be an acceptable water level to gain access to the crudely constructed El Pinabete mine.
“In any case, we’re going to continue pumping…. The process is slow but we don’t want to take any risks,” said Velazquez.
Songs, prayers
The announcement provided a new glimmer of hope for families that have become increasingly frustrated with the pace of the rescue operation.
“With that level (of water) you can already enter — God willing,” David Huerta, the brother-in-law of one of the trapped workers, told .
