The presence of mud in the tunnels hindered the rescue efforts. | Photo: La Jornada

Mexico City, June 10 (RHC)-- The bodies of the last three miners trapped in the Micarán mine, in the municipality of Múzquiz, in the Mexican state of Coahuila, were found lifeless by rescuers on Wednesday, after remaining in a flooded corridor since last Friday, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare (STPS) reported on Twitter.

The STPS adds that it was in the diagonal seven of the final stretch where the search was concentrated. At the same time, the institution detailed that due to the existing mud after the flooding of the tunnels, the rescue work was delayed. 

The bodies found on Wednesday correspond to the Mexican miners Francisco Briseño, 24 years old, Ernesto Damián Robles, 27 years old, and José Leopoldo Méndez, 24 years old.

The State Attorney General of Justice, Gerardo Márquez Guevara, declared this Wednesday to local media that a deep cleaning was carried out to remove tons of mud from the main canyon of the mine.

According to the Pasta de Conchos Family Organization (OFPC), dedicated to the defense and promotion of human and labor rights of coal miners and their families, complaints had been made about the Múzquiz mine, related to unsafe working conditions for the workers.

At the Pasta de Conchos mine, also located in northern Coahuila, 65 miners died in a similar accident on February 19, 2006, and only two bodies were recovered. Since then, more than a hundred miners have died in the area.

Last Sunday, the STPS announced on the social network Twitter that a fourth body had been found. On the other hand, two of the nine workers who were in the area of the collapse on June 4 managed to get out of the accident alive.