Eight days after the collapse in a coal mine in northern Mexico where ten miners remain trapped, their relatives cling to their faith to try to endure the exhausting wait and the delay of the rescue operation that was postponed the day before after the discovery. of numerous obstacles in the sinkhole.
After spending four nights sleeping sitting on a plastic chair outside the mine, Liliana Torres refuses to leave the place and remains clinging to an unshakable faith that her uncle, Jaime Montelongo, will come out alive along with his nine companions.
“At times I feel tired, but little by little it gives me strength again,” the 32-year-old teacher told The Associated Press by phone on Thursday, admitting that the strength that keeps her standing is “the hope that my uncle come back”.
Jaime Montelongo has been considered the hero of the tragedy because after hearing the loud noise caused by the collapse and flooding of the mine on the afternoon of August 3, the 61-year-old miner decided to go down the shaft to look for his companions, but never returned.
After working for almost five decades as a miner, just like his father did, Montelongo achieved a retirement but the meager pension forced him to return to the mines to work taking buckets of coal that were filled by his colleagues who extracted the ore from the depths. of the sinkhole
The miners were trapped after an adjoining area of an old mine that was filled with water collapsed, causing heavy flooding in three of the facility’s shafts some 60 meters deep.
In the coal mine, located in the Sabinas municipality of the northern state of Coahuila, 15 workers worked, but only five managed to get out after the water entered. The miners, all low-income, worked in the place without security measures or supervision by the authorities.
Clinging to a figure of San Judas Tadeo, which they placed on the outskirts of the mine in an improvised altar next to Jaime’s photographs and nightstands, Torres, along with his uncles and cousins, await news from the authorities about the fate of the miners.
“They are waiting a long time for the rescue,” Torres said, complaining about the decision authorities made on Wednesday to postpone the rescue operation for the miners after military divers and rescuers who descended about nine meters into a metal basket to well number 4, they reported the finding of several obstacles to advance towards the galleries.
The case has reactivated criticism of the precarious conditions in which many miners work in Mexico, without complying with safety measures such as ventilation systems, emergency exits and safety equipment, and without the supervision of the Ministry of Labor.
According to the information provided by the Ministry of National Defense, the two military divers, three civilian rescuers and three military members of the Immediate Response Team for Emergencies or Disasters removed 13 wooden poles and 15 meters of flexible hose from the well.
The National Coordination of Civil Protection indicated on Thursday that the “bottom of the well was found clear”, but the entrances to the four galleries of the mine “are blocked by wooden piles”.
The authorities promised on Thursday to continue with the work of pumping water from the wells to free the galleries and be able to start the rescue work.
From the day of the accident, the authorities began extracting water from the wells with the help of some twenty extraction pumps. However, the process was delayed because the level dropped very slowly, because while the water came out of one side, it entered the other. Given this situation, the team in charge of the emergency decided to drill twice in the area to prevent more water from entering.
Some 672 agents of the military forces and other security forces participate in the rescue efforts.
The authorities have not offered information on the condition in which the 10 trapped miners would be found, but specialists have recognized that it is very difficult for them to get out alive and they say that everything will depend on whether they managed to find a space to shelter from the water.
Both the Attorney General’s Office and the Coahuila Attorney General’s Office initiated investigations and took a statement from a person who claimed to be the owner of the mine, but so far no announcements have been made about the progress of the process.
