Over Seven Years Later, Recovery of Miners' Bodies Still on Hold The News
go to original March 22, 2013

Families of victims of the Pasta de Conchos mine disaster have waited more than seven years to find out if their relatives’ bodies will ever be recovered. Now, they’ll have to wait a little longer.

Labor Secretary Alfonso Navarrete Prida said on this week that the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) has yet to make a decision on whether the mine site will be reopened and the 63 bodies recovered.

In February, as miners’ families commemorated the seventh anniversary of the disaster by laying out 63 cardboard coffins at the foot of Mexico City’s Angel of Independence monument, the PGR announced it would begin inspecting the site to determine if the bodies could be recovered.

The Pasta de Conchos coal mine, owned by Grupo México, the country’s largest mining company, was rocked by an explosion on Feb. 19, 2006. Of the 65 mine workers killed in the blast, only two bodies were ever recovered.

Navarrete Prida said that the PGR is still investigating technical conditions at the mine, and that it has not set a date to announce whether the mine will be reopened.

“At this moment we don’t know the PGR’s answer. It’s not a matter of one single decision. We need to find qualified technicians,” he said, adding, “I don’t have a date at this moment, it’s not for me to say and I would not want to speculate on the subject.”

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