Bartlett: the rescue in Pasta de Conchos is very close

When releasing a report on the progress in the recovery of bodies of workers in the El Pinabete and Pasta de Conchos mines, in Coahuila, the general director of the Federal Electricity Commission (institution responsible for the rescue), Manuel Bartlett, maintained that on this last case, we are already very close to enter the area where the remains would be, because the mine entrance that allowed entry to the area where they would be working when the accident occurred, on February 19, 2006, had already been found.

Cesar Fuentes, corporate director of engineering and projects, said that two ports have been drilled in Pasta de Conchos (tunnels 145 and 170 meters deep, with a diameter of 8 meters) to access the site where the deposit corridors were located in in which 63 miners were trapped.

In the first case, he said, the works are located 10 meters from the objective, so it is expected that on May 12 they will be able to enter the area where there would be 12 bodies. At port two there is an approach to 14 meters, and they hope to enter on July 18.

Bartlett highlighted that this mine belonged to Grupo México, one of the most powerful consortiums in the country, which during the Vicente Fox government, when the tragedy occurred, declined to continue the rescue because it considered that this humanitarian effort was very dangerous and costly. He highlighted that the commitment of this government is to achieve the recovery of the bodies before the end of the six-year term.

He stressed that In the place, with exploitations of hundreds of years of mines, it has been an enormous job that has required geological studies. You cannot circulate through the collapsed corridors, it was necessary to go directly to the sites established by the reports.

For his part, Fuentes explained that “39 thousand tons of material have had to be extracted, which is equivalent to carrying out 1,100 dumps to a place we call ‘slag heap’, where we deposited it.”

He said that there is a third work front, in which access ramps have been built, with explosions that allowed 90 thousand tons to be removed, which made it possible to penetrate 700 meters, but 320 more meters still need to be excavated, so it is estimated that It would be entered on August 15.

Regarding El Pinabete (where the accident occurred in August 2022), he highlighted that the excavation work with an open pit – lacking information about the interior of the mine – allowed the bodies of four miners to be rescued (Jorge Luis Martínez Valdez, Jaime Montelongo Pérez, Hugo Tijerina Amaya and José Rogelio Moreno Morales). In this case, it was reported, the delivery of compensation to his family has already been completed.

In turn, Laura Velázquez, national coordinator of Civil Protection, reported that on the 30th, relatives of the workers at the two mines will meet with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.