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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2006 
Methane Levels Dim Hopes for Mexican Miners
 Ioan Grillo - Associated Press
| | Coal miner Julian Rodriguez takes a break from helping to dig out trapped miners in San Juan De Sabinas, Mexico. Calling the 65 trapped miners his brothers, he vowed to not leave until all were accounted for. (AP) |
Sabinas, Mexico - Rescuers searching for 65 trapped coal miners broke through an enormous wall of debris Thursday, finding high levels of methane gas but no sign of two workers who were thought to be there.
The discoveries dimmed hopes for the miners trapped since a Sunday morning explosion, but authorities refused to rule out the chance of survival.
Officials said the levels of toxic gas were increasing as rescuers advanced deeper into the mine, but they stopped short of saying they thought the miners were dead.
"The air as the rescue advances is increasingly lacking in oxygen and more laden with methane, which makes it less breathable," federal Labor Secretary Francisco Salazar told family members and reporters gathered outside the gates of the Pasta de Conchos mine.
"The conditions are becoming increasingly adverse," added mine administrator Rubén Escudero. "It is grave, and being realistic, we think the situation is difficult." He declined to elaborate.
Four experts from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration entered the mine's tunnels Thursday with equipment to measure gas levels, Salazar said.
Coahuila Gov. Humberto Moreira Valdés, who is monitoring the rescue efforts, told W Radio on Thursday that the results of the experts' tests were expected later Thursday and would allow officials to determine the miners' possibilities of survival.
No sign of miners
Escudero told a news conference that rescuers had advanced 700 yards inside the mine, about 100 yards beyond where two conveyor-belt operators were believed to be trapped.
Officials earlier said the condition of the two men might give a hint about the fate of the other workers.
But Escudero said there was no sign of them, which he said meant they either had been buried under debris or were in a different part of the mine.
Rescuers have used picks, shovels and their hands -- in lieu of power machinery -- to avoid explosions. After four days of digging narrow passages through hundreds of tons of rubble, they insisted they would not give up.
880 tons of debris
"We are not going to abandon our comrades, dead or alive," said Álvaro Cortés, his face lined with exhaustion and blackened with coal as he ended a search shift early Thursday.
"We all want to find them and end this episode," said Rubén Quintero, who emerged from the tunnel late Wednesday night.
Escudero said 72 workers laboring around the clock had removed 660 to 880 tons of debris since they began the rescue operation.
Fresh air was being pumped to an area of the mine that had been cleared with the hope that rescuers could shed their heavy oxygen tanks and work faster.
Mine operators say the blast was an accident and the mine, about 85 miles southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas, had passed recent government inspections.
But several miners interviewed by the Associated Press told of being sent into dangerously unstable shafts without training or proper equipment.
"They give you basic equipment and no training," said Clemente Rivera, 28, a Pasta de Conchos mine worker whose two cousins and a neighbor remain trapped.
The national miners' union said late Wednesday that workers had gone on strike against mine owner Grupo México SA de CV at least 14 times, "not only for salary increases . . . but because of its constant refusal to review security and health measures."
Juan Rebolledo, Grupo México's vice president of international affairs, told the Associated Press by telephone that such issues had been addressed in a contract that both the company and the union had signed.
"This is not the moment to be arguing with the union, when we have to focus on the rescue," he said. |
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