Global General

3 dead, 11 trapped in Mexican coal mine explosion

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-05-04 13:44

SAN JUAN DE SABINAS, Mexico - Mexican officials who had hoped to call in Chilean experts to help rescue 14 miners trapped in a coal mine instead have had to break the tragic news to relatives that three bodies had already been found and there was little hope the 11 others had survived.

The gas explosion that ripped through the primitive, vertical-shaft mine Tuesday was so powerful it seriously injured a 15-year-old boy working on a conveyor belt outside the pit. Labor Secretary Javier Lozano said that left little hope those inside could have withstood the force of the blast.

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"The outlook is very bad," Lozano said at the scene. "The truth is that it does not allow us to hold out much hope."

A team of four rescuers who entered the mine after an initial explorer declared it safe to do so, quickly found the bodies of three miners at the front face of the rubble shaken loose by the blast.

Just hours earlier, officials had been hoping for a Chilean-style miracle rescue, like that of the 33 miners who survived 69 days underground following the August 5 collapse of the San Jose mine in Chile and were rescued in October.

Lozano said Mexico had asked Chile for help, and that four experts were expected to arrive shortly.

But hopes fell and wailing sobs rose up from the crowd of about 80 friends and relatives when they spotted a truck from the local morgue show up at the pit head.

"No, Lord, I don't want this to happen," wailed one woman, as she was embraced by another outside the small mine located in San Juan de Sabinas, Coahuila state, about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon issued a statement late Tuesday expressing his condolences to the victims' families. He said the federal government "will do everything in its power to help state and local authorities rescue the rest of the trapped miners."

The injured boy had worked separating coal from tailings; he was taken to a hospital in serious condition, said Jesus Espinoza, a spokesman for mining company BIMSA. Federal prosecutors later said both the boy's arms had been amputated and that he remained in serious condition.

Lozano said the boy's employment at the mine was an apparent violation of labor laws.