AS IF the effort to rescue 65 trapped coal miners wasn’t hampered enough by toxic gas and walls of debris, a local power outage early yesterday briefly shut down a ventilation system.

Relatives of 65 coal miners trapped underground for almost two days after a gas explosion grew increasingly desperate and frustrated today, as rescue workers provided no real news of their loved ones.

Rescue workers were burrowing through debris clogging a Mexican coal mine early today, a desperate effort to free 65 miners who had been trapped for more than a day by a gas explosion.