Two workers were killed on Tuesday in an accident at a coal mine near Sabinas, Coahuila.
According to official reports by the Coahuila branch of the National Coordination for Civil Protection (CNPC), the accident happened at a mine on the El Mezquite communal land at around 12 p.m. The victims were named as merely José Guadalupe and Juan Jesús.
Although local media initially reported the accident as an explosion, authorities later said the two men died after a winch carrying them out of the mine shaft broke. Coahuila’s Undersecretary of Civil Protection Francisco Martínez Ávalos estimated they had fallen about 70 meters.
Relatives of the miners began to arrive at the site in the hours following the accident, and the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) was notified to activate the relevant protocols.
On Wednesday, the CNPC announced on social media that the two bodies had been recovered and sent condolences to the miners’ families. The federal Attorney General’s Office (FGR) is participating in an investigation into the incident.
The accident comes almost a year after a collapse at the nearby El Pinabete mine on August 3, 2022, left 10 workers trapped. All 10 died after flooding in the mine made it impossible for rescue crews to reach them. Their bodies have yet to be recovered.
In May, Luis Rafael García Luna Acuña, majority owner of the Pinabete mine, was arrested on illegal mining charges and ordered to stand trial for “unlawful exploitation of an asset belonging to the nation.”
Laura Velázquez Alzúa, federal head of the CNPC, held a meeting with families of the El Pinabete miners and engineers from the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) on Monday, in which the families were informed of progress in the excavation of the collapsed mine to recover their loved ones’ remains.
CFE engineers reported that more machinery and personnel had been deployed to accelerate pumping work and construct hydraulic plugs to control water levels in the pit. If the plugs pass efficiency tests, controlled excavations can begin to recover the bodies.
With reports from Sin Embargo, Infobae and Milenio
