MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico will ask both a German and a U.S. company to help rescue 10 miners who have been trapped in a coal mine for nearly two weeks, officials said on Tuesday.
The Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond when asked which two companies it contacted.
The miners became confined underground at the Pinabete mine in the northern border state of Coahuila on Aug. 3 when a tunnel wall collapsed, triggering flooding throughout the mine.
Water surged more than halfway up the 60-meter (197-foot) mine shafts, and officials have struggled to extract enough water and debris such as piping and wooden planks to be able to safely send rescue teams into the mine.
Laura Velazquez, head of Mexico’s civil protection agency, said officials at Mexico’s Foreign Ministry would speak with the companies on Tuesday.
“They are two companies that will give us an opinion to determine our actions with more precision,” she told a regular government news conference.
Engineers meanwhile are working on sealing off the Pinabete mine from the nearby Conchas Norte mine, an unused site that has been accumulating water for more than 25 years, while continuing to pump water out of Pinabete.
(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
