SAN JUAN DE SABINAS, Mexico (Reuters):
RESCUE WORKERS with picks and shovels dug frantically yesterday to reach 65 miners trapped underground after a blast at a Mexican coal mine but there was little hope of finding the men alive.
Soldiers and civil protection workers had been unable to make contact with the miners and, more than a day after the gas explosion in a remote, semi-desert region, the workers' six-hour oxygen tanks had almost certainly run out.
Scores of anxious relatives, some wrapped up in blankets against the chilly air, others standing around fires for warmth, waited all night outside the mine in the state of Coahuila, 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.
"We are desperate and thinking the worst," said Edgar Hernandez, a 25-year-old engineer, whose brother Jose was missing. "The rescue is going really slowly and down there they have no oxygen, no light, nor food."
Soldiers stood at the gates of the mine at the town of San Juan de Sabinas, stopping family members from going inside. More than a dozen ambulances lined up at the entrance, some with engines idling.
Sergio Robles, head of Coahuila's civil protection agency, said an explosive mixture of methane gas underground made the rescue dangerous.
"We hold out hope but we have to be realistic," Robles said. "With the atmosphere and the risks and with time passing, everything is running against us."
DIGGING AROUND THE CLOCK
Rescuers were working around the clock in shifts and one said it could take days to reach the men.
"We are working with shovels, taking out rubble by hand," said a miner, covered from head to toe in coal dust.
"We are advancing but slowly," he said after his shift in the mine rescue operation ended.
When the accident happened on Sunday morning, the miners were working 500 yards (metres) below ground and a further 1.25 miles (2 km) along tunnels.
Eight miners who were working closer to the surface were rescued after the explosion. They were taken to a hospital with first and second-degree burns. Four were later discharged.
Ventilators were pumping out gas at the mine, owned by Grupo Mexico, the world's number three copper miner, which also works other mineral deposits.
Off-duty miner Salvador Estrada, said workers at the mine had complained to engineers of a gas smell last week but were told to get back to work.
Adrian Cardenas, a miner who worked the shift prior to the explosion, said inspections were carried out infrequently and were only cursory in nature.
"The inspection gangs did not do their work and look what happened," the 30-year old said, shaking his head.
More than 150 coal miners died when an explosion collapsed tunnels in the 1960s in the same state, one of the worst mining tragedies in recent Mexican history. Another local mine explosion killed 37 in 1998.
Coahuila is Mexico's top coal-mining state, serving the local steel and power industries. Many of the mines are deep underground.
The mine is four hours' drive from the northern industrial city of Monterrey and 60 miles (100 km) southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas.
