MEXICO CITY, Aug 17 — Mexico will ask both a German and a US company to help rescue 10 miners who have been trapped in a coal mine for nearly two weeks, officials said yesterday, as families urged quicker action to save the trapped men.The miners became confined underground at the Pinabete mine in the northern border state of Coahuila on August 3 when a tunnel wall collapsed, triggering flooding throughout the mine.
Laura Velazquez, head of Mexico’s civil protection agency, said Mexican officials, including the Foreign Ministry, would speak with the companies yesterday. Engineers meanwhile are pumping water out of Pinabete while working on sealing off the nearby Conchas Norte mine — where water that has accumulated for more than 25 years is now rushing into Pinabete due to the underground tunnel collapse.