The miners were trapped in a sinkhole located in the municipality of Sabinas, which collapsed on Wednesday afternoon. | Photo: El siglo de Durango
Mexico City, August 8 (RHC)-- The president of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, announced that during the day on Sunday traveled in a military plane to Coahuila (north of the country), to supervise the rescue actions of the ten miners trapped since Wednesday in a mine in that region.
AMLO reported that he traveled from Colima to Coahuila in a plane of the Armed Forces, after affirming that he is confident that the miners are safe: "Well, we are going to continue hoping, trusting that they are safe, and that with everything we have been doing, they will be able to be rescued."
The rescue of the ten miners trapped in the mine has been hindered by flooding in the shafts in the area of the accident, so the authorities are trying to block the water that continues to flow.
Since last Friday, the national coordinator of Civil Protection, Laura Velázquez, stated in the morning presidential conference that it is "indispensable to reduce the level of the water mirror in the area of the incident to be in conditions to allow the safe entry of specialized search and rescue personnel".
The miners were trapped in a sinkhole located in the municipality of Sabinas, which collapsed on Wednesday afternoon when the men stumbled into an adjacent area filled with water which, when it collapsed, caused the flooding of three shafts.
In the accident, five other workers, who managed to get out, were injured. Two have been released from the clinic of the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social to which they were previously transferred for medical attention.
Two days ago, the authorities indicated that after two days of extraction work, the water in the wells had only been reduced from 34 to 30 meters deep. In these circumstances, the team in charge of the emergency decided, on the recommendation of specialists, to drill two holes in the area where the mine is located in order to "place a curtain to prevent more water from reaching the wells where the accident is", said Agustín Rádiala Suástegui, Undersecretary of the Ministry of National Defense, at the presidential conference.
