PBI-Mexico meets with Pasta de Conchos Family Organization, recalls AMLO’s promise that mine rescue will begin within weeks

On August 19, the Peace Brigades International-Mexico Project posted: “In a meeting with the Pasta de Conchos Family Organization, we remember that October 1 is the deadline to start the rescue within the Pasta De Conchos mine.”

The explosion at the Grupo Mexico’s Pasta de Conchos coal mine near Nueva Rosita, San Juan de Sabinas municipality in the state of Coahuila on February 19, 2006, killed 65 people. To date only two bodies have been recovered from the mine.

Reuters has reported: “A special prosecutor for the case blamed Grupo Mexico for allowing a deadly mix of methane, heat and oxygen to build up in the mine, failing to build proper ventilation shafts or to neutralize explosive coal dust. Government inspectors who failed to enforce the necessary safety precautions were also implicated.”

That article adds, “In the moments following the blast, the workers were likely buried by thousands of tons of rock. Investigators also said it was possible that many of the men were incinerated.”

Promises from AMLO

On May 1, 2019, Reuters reported that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged that the recovery effort would start soon.

In February 2020, Expansion reported: “14 years after the collapse of the Pasta de Conchos mine in Coahuila, Labor Secretary Luisa Maria Alcalde Luján reported that it will be next October when the recovery of the 63 bodies of the miners who lost their lives will begin.”

And earlier this month, Infobae reported: “The President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, signed in October last year an act of commitment to begin in 2021 the process of recovery of the 63 miners.”

At that time, La Jornada reported that Obrador had promised “the immediate start of studies by the Federal Electricity Commission that allows the rescue tasks in September 2021 and the excavation works in 2024. Rescue work is estimated to take up to 4 years.”

Pasta de Conchos Family Organization’s demands

In February of this year, the Agustín Pro Juárez Human Rights Center (Centro Prodh) posted: “The families are once again on the lookout and vigilant that there are no more delays in the materialization of the commitment of this administration. They reiterated their demand that the rescue begin on September 1.”

PBI-Mexico notes: “15 years after the collapse, the demands are the same: #RescateYa (#RescueNow), Justice, Guarantees of non-repetition.”