Hopes Fading at Mine

Tempers flared and hope dimmed among hundreds of relatives holding vigil Tuesday for 65 coal miners trapped three days ago by an explosion and collapse.

Emergency crews continued working round-the-clock with hand tools, but cave-ins and other obstructions kept them more than 150 feet from the site of two trapped miners. There has been no sign of life from the area, about a mile from the mine entrance.

High levels of methane gas have prevented the use of power tools for fear of sparking a fire, officials said.

Families massed against the gates to the mine entrance, by late afternoon shouting for an update from government officials and mine owners Grupo Mexico. The mine is about 70 miles southwest of the Texas border town of Eagle Pass.

Many of the relatives had been there since they learned of the explosion early Sunday, sleeping in chairs and huddling around barrels of burning logs in near-freezing temperatures.

A crew of about 100 volunteers prepared breakfast, lunch and dinner, cooking soups, stews and beans in large kettles heated by propane fires. Women wearing hairnets and paper surgical masks passed out donated sodas, bottled water, plates of hot food and thousands of tortillas. The food and volunteer spirit kept up hopes Monday.

But the mood shifted Tuesday. Workers overnight had built a 50-yard-long fence of wood and canvas that stretched from the mine entrance to a line of a dozen ambulances, blocking views and triggering speculation that crews would be ferrying dead or injured miners.

By afternoon, the ambulances, which had been parked since Sunday, drove off empty.

Officials said the emergency vehicles would return if needed, but their exit heightened anxiety in the crowd.

Sergio Robles, head of the federal civil protection agency -- Mexico’s equivalent of FEMA -- was shouted down when he told the crowd that little progress had been made reaching two miners closest to the entrance.

Plans to clear mine shafts of debris and siphon off the methane, announced Monday, had failed by early Tuesday.

Officials holed up in company offices for 10 hours, and by the time Robles came out to speak about 5 p.m., anger was high.

“We want to know whether they are alive,” yelled one woman. “You’re down there. We want to know.”

Others joined in: “People are upset,” a man called out. “You have us chasing ambulances to see if anyone is inside!”

“You people are hiding something!” said another man.

Robles responded with what officials had been telling family members for two days: “We’re working as fast as possible. Our priority right now is the rescue.”

U.S. mining experts were expected to arrive today, and Robles said he hoped they could help.

But other signs in town were more troubling to families. At the nearby Santa Rosa cemetery, workers had dug 15 new graves and chalk-marked two more before going home Tuesday.