One of four miners trapped in a Sinaloa mine since Wednesday was pulled to safety just after midnight Sunday.
With more than 300 rescuers on site in the municipality of El Rosario, the authorities are hopeful the other three miners can be rescued.
Shortly after a tailings dam collapsed, rescuers had located the four miners and were delivering water, food and oxygen to the men. At the time, officials said one of the miners was 100 meters below the surface, while the other three were about 250 meters farther inside the mine.
After 100 hours of uninterrupted work by emergency crews, José Alejandro Cáustulo, 44, was pulled from the mine at 12:25 a.m. local time. He was transported by helicopter to Mazatlán General Hospital for treatment.
Twenty-five mine workers were excavating inside the mine on Wednesday when the collapse occurred at 2 p.m. The accident was reported to National Civil Protection (CNPC) authorities around noon Thursday after initial rescue efforts were unsuccessful.
A unified command post immediately established a structural reinforcement plan aimed at ensuring the safety of the rescuers and the trapped miners.
“The efforts of more than 300 personnel and 42 units are working around the clock, organized in operational rotation periods,” the CNPC said in a statement, adding that rescue teams are operating with controlled ventilation and temperatures close to 25 degrees Celsius. “An alarm system remains active … to issue timely warnings of any risk and carry out immediate evacuations if the situation requires it.”
As the rescuers work to clear a path along 1.5 kilometers of ramps and tunnels to reach the deepest point of the mine, the internal structure will be reinforced with cement mixtures and expansive resins to guarantee the integrity of the escape route.
A mine official said tunnels deep inside the mine did not collapse, but escape was made difficult by muddy materials that made the ramps slick, trapping the men below the collapsed areas.
The Santa Fe gold mine is operated by Industrial Minera Sinaloa, located in the town of Chele, Sinaloa.
With reports from La Jornada, El Universal, El Financiero, Expansión and El País
