The Mexican government announced on July 26 the identification of the first body recovered from the El Pinabete mine, located in Coahuila. This Friday, different institutions concluded the search for miners after recovering the remains of the tenth and final worker who remained inside the galleries of this coal mine.
The search and recovery efforts for the miners in El Pinabete have been completed, although efforts will continue to remove the extracted material from the mine and to carry out ecological restoration of the area, according to a joint statement issued by the Mexican government.
The skeletal remains were located in the GSN6 Norte gallery, at the intersection with the Vertical Shaft 2 (TV-2) at 10:09 hours. These remains will be transferred to the Forensic Medical Service in Saltillo, Coahuila, for analysis and identification, with the aim of providing certainty to the families of the trapped individuals.
In February, the discovery of the remains of the tenth miner trapped since August 2022 in the 'El Pinabete' coal mine was reported. The collapse that trapped 10 miners occurred 926 days ago, initiating the rescue efforts that recently concluded.
The recovery of the bodies was a coordinated effort by different institutions that make up the Unified Command of El Pinabete, such as the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), the National Civil Protection Coordination (CNPC), the Secretariat of National Defense, and the Attorney General's Office of the State of Coahuila de Zaragoza (FGEC), which ensured the safety of the rescue team and the application of the Protocol for the Recovery of Biological Findings.
President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged to fulfill the promise of delivering the remains of the trapped miners to their families, as expressed by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The recovery process of the bodies in the 'El Pinabete' mine was marked by controversy in Mexico regarding safety in the mines of the coal region, where numerous incidents have occurred, including more than 100 deaths.
