The bodies of the ten miners buried in the collapse of a coal mine in Sabinas, Coahuila on August 3, 2022 are slowly coming to light. According to the Civil Protection, the teams searching for human remains found the fourth body at 11:45 a.m. this Tuesday. “25 days after the start of the intensive recovery operations carried out by the miners in El Pinabete, it was reported that the operations carried out today have reached the location of the fourth bone remains,” the institution reported in a statement. Prosecutors hope to find all the workers trapped more than 60 meters underground for more than a year and a half within a month.
The first two bodies appeared on December 27, five feet apart. They were buried for 512 days. They were identified as “biological indications 'A' and 'B'”. Two days later, rescue teams consisting of Civil Protection, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) and the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena) found the third body. It took more than two weeks to find the room. The remains have not yet been identified, although authorities note in the released statement that “the identification process will begin immediately to provide certainty to the families concerned.”
On August 3, a flood caused the collapse of the wells of Pinabete, a company accused by the Attorney General of the Republic of operating “illegally” but which still had a contract with the CFE (Federal Electricity Commission) for 75 million pesos . As revealed by an investigation by the Animal Político portal, the public body described the exploitation as “safe” and agreed to purchase all the mineral mined between 2020 and 2024. Two men, Cristian Solís Saavedra, a foreman, considered “monsters” of the families and Luis Rafael García Luna Acuña, one of the alleged owners of the company, are arrested. A third, Arnulfo Garza Cárdenas, is a fugitive with an international arrest warrant from Interpol.
The rescue effort, which was still expected to recover the workers alive, was extended until August 29. Little by little, hope was exhausted and reality prevailed over the blind faith of the families, professional teams and volunteer miners of the region who worked side by side to save the ten day laborers. Then a new phase of searching for the bodies began so that their relatives could give them a dignified burial and put an end to the tragedy.
It took four months to recover the bodies. In December 2022, the CFE began blasting the ground to open a huge pit. The main problem was that the galleries were still flooded with water, the biggest obstacle to overcome during this period. More than five million tons of earth and rock were removed to drill the 62 meters that separated the surface from the miners. This work lasted a year until last December, when manual labor began to reach the bodies.
The CFE is described by mining experts and the families of the victims as another shadowy culprit in the tragedy. The organization is the key element of López Obrador's electrical reform. 99% of the coal purchased comes from the Coahuila coal region. Far from implementing new safety measures following the collapse, activity in the Coahuila mines continues unchanged. In July this year, two men died in another accident at a well, also in Sabinas. You join a list that grows year after year. According to records from victims' relatives, more than 3,100 miners have died in this region since coal mining began in the late 19th century.
Working conditions at Pinabete were inhumane and did not meet the most basic security requirements, such as an official record of who entered and exited the galleries. “Excavation work continues in the areas that experts have identified as those with the highest probability of discovery. “The goal remains to locate and identify the six remaining miners trapped in the El Pinabete mine,” the civil protection agency now says. The families' wait is finally coming to an end.
The 10 miners
1. José Rogelio Moreno Morales (22 years old)
2. Ramiro Torres Rodriguez (24 years old)
3. Hugo Tijerina Amaya (29 years old)
4. Jorge Luis Martínez Valdez (34 years old)
5. Sergio Gabriel Cruz Gaitán (41 years old)
6. José Rogelio Moreno Leija (42 years old), father of José Rogelio Moreno Morales
7. Mario Alberto Cabriales Uresti (45 years old)
8. José Luis Mireles Argüijo (46 years old)
9. Margarito Rodríguez Palomares (54 years old)
10. Jaime Montelongo Pérez (61 years old)
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