Mexico prepares to begin underground search for 10 trapped miners

AGUJITA, Mexico: 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.

Several hundred rescuers, including soldiers and military scuba divers, are taking part in efforts to save the miners missing since Aug 3 in the northern state of Coahuila.

“We have all the conditions to go down there... to search for and rescue” the miners, civil defense national coordinator Laura Velazquez said by video link during President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s morning news conference.

But as nightfall later approached, Velazquez sounded a more cautious note, telling reporters it was unclear when the search would begin.

A specialist military team had made several more descents into one of the vertical shafts of El Pinabete mine to remove wood and other debris blocking their way, she said.

But they had not yet reached the floor of the 60-metre deep shaft to access the main tunnels where the workers were believed to be trapped, Velazquez added.

“I cannot even tell you for sure when we’re going to enter the galleries. There’s no way,” she said.

Earlier Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said that the water level in one of the three shafts that rescuers would try to enter has been reduced to 70 centimetres, from more than 30 metres initially.

The other two shafts still have 3.9 and 4.7 metres of water.

Authorities consider 1.5 metres to be an acceptable water level to gain access to the crudely constructed El Pinabete mine.

Five miners managed to escape following the initial accident, in which workers carrying out excavation activities hit an adjoining area full of water, but there have been no signs of life from the others.