Nine miners trapped in coal mine shaft in northern Mexico, rescue efforts underway
Steph Deschamps / August 4, 2022
At least nine miners were trapped Wednesday in a shaft of a coal mine in northern Mexico after it collapsed, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.
At 13:35, a collapse was reported in a coal mine in the municipality of Sabinas in the state of Coahuila, which caused the flooding of the shaft where were trapped, visibly, nine miners, wrote the head of the Mexican state on Twitter.
We hope to find them safe and sound, added Lopez Obrador, noting that rescue workers were on the scene, including 92 members of the National Guard.
Relatives of the miners gathered near the mine, praying. I have two sons (who work in the mine), a mother told the Milenio television station, without giving her name. One of the two was able to escape the collapse, she added in tears.
The site of the accident is located 1,130 km north of Mexico City in the state of Coahuila, the main carboniferous area of Mexico.
In June 2021, seven miners died in the collapse of another coal mine in the same state.
The most serious accident in this region occurred in 2006, when a gas explosion in a mine killed 65 people.