Power outage hampers efforts to save miners in Mexico

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.

Mine officials were counting on the machinery to pump fresh air to the victims.

Rescue workers wearing gas masks and oxygen tanks have been digging by hand for three days, working without electric or gas-powered machinery because of the presence of explosive gases in the Pasta de Conchos mine. But after more than 50 hours of digging, they still hadn’t reached any survivors.

Mine officials pleaded with distraught relatives to be patient, saying there is no way to know if the miners are dead or alive.

“We implore you to understand this effort,” said Ruben Escudero, administrator of the mine in northern Mexico, where a gas explosion trapped the workers deep underground early on Sunday.

The rescuers had advanced 500 yards inside the mine by late Monday night when they ran into a wall of debris. After knocking the wall down, they moved another 100 yards before hitting a new wall, he said.

The searchers believe that two conveyer belt operators may be trapped just beyond that second wall.

Most of the others are thought to be much deeper - as far as one to three miles from the mine’s entrance.

Relatives of the miners, increasingly desperate after receiving no information, begged officials to tell them anything - no matter how bad the news.

“Just tell us and get it over with,” said Maria Trinidad Cantu, who has camped out at the site awaiting news of her son Raul Villasana, 32.

“Why don’t you tell us the truth? If it was something awful, OK, but we are strong enough to take it.”

Some relatives began to panic yesterday when they saw editions of the local newspaper La Prensa de Monclova, whose banner headline was a quote from a surviving miner: “They are surely dead.”

“Did you see what the newspaper said?” Salvador Estrada, whose son-in-law is trapped in the mine, asked state Civil Protection Director Arturo Vilchis. “The newspaper is saying everyone is dead. Who gave that information? Why are they saying that?”

Mr Vilchis said officials “can’t speculate on the condition of the miners.”

Jesus de Leon’s son is trapped underground. He said the wait was unbearable.

“If the rescue workers have advanced just one more metre we need to know about it,” Mr de Leon said. “They don’t tell us anything.”

Some relatives prayed with priests and ministers at the mine’s entrance. Women wept openly and swayed with their arms in the air. Men wiped tears from their eyes.

US mining experts arrived late yesterday to help, said Juan Rebolledo, vice president of international affairs for mine owner Grupo Mexico.