Gold Miner Rescued After 14 Days Trapped Underground in Flooded Tunnel Says ‘I Didn’t Lose Faith’
NEED TO KNOW
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Rescue divers have saved a gold miner after he was trapped in a flooded underground tunnel for 14 days
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42-year-old Francisco Zapata Nájera was taken to the hospital, where he reunited with his family
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The search continues for another miner who remains trapped underground
A gold miner in Mexico has been rescued after 14 days trapped underground in a flooded tunnel.
Francisco Zapata Nájera, 42, was working in a gold mine in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa on March 25 when an embankment collapsed and a dam burst, leaving him stuck 985 feet below the surface, per the BBC, ABC and NBC.
Twenty-five miners were inside at the time, but 21 managed to get out, leaving four people inside, the outlets added.
Of these, miner José Alejandro Cástulo was rescued after five days, while another miner died — with Mexican newspaper El Universal reporting that his body has been recovered.
Rescue teams carry the miner on a stretcher
Credit: MEXICO’S SECRETARIAT OF NATIONAL DEFENSE / AFP via Getty
After 13 days and more than 300 hours of searching, rescue divers located Zapata after they spotted his flashlight and approached him. “I didn’t lose faith, I didn’t lose faith,” he told his rescuers, per the BBC.
Because of flooding in the mine, the divers couldn’t extract Zapata immediately and had to leave him with water, cans of tuna fish and energy bars, the outlet added.
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Twenty hours later, after using pumps to lower the water levels, rescue teams brought Zapata to the surface wrapped in a thermal blanket on Wednesday, April 8. He was then taken to a local hospital, where he reunited with his family, the BBC reported.
He was suffering from dehydration, and doctors described him as frail but stable, reported the BBC and El Universal.
The rescued miner is loaded into a helicopter
Credit: MEXICO’S SECRETARIAT OF NATIONAL DEFENSE / AFP via Getty
The last remaining member of the four miners left behind is still missing, and the search for him is continuing. Per El Universal, authorities from the state government, the Navy and the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection are among those working to locate the miner.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum praised the Mexican army and Zapata’s faith and resilience in a statement on social media.
“The exceptional members of the Mexican Army Emergency Response Battalion, the faith and resilience of a miner made this amazing rescue possible after 13 days. I’m sure that each and every Mexican has our hearts with you,” she wrote in a post translated from the original Spanish.
The accident came almost four years after 10 miners died when the El Pinabete coal mine flooded in Coahuila, Mexico in August 2022.
The bodies of the miners were never recovered.
Mexico’s deadliest mining accident took place in February 2006 in the Pasta de Conchos coal mine, also in Coahuila. It’s thought that 65 miners were trapped underground due to an explosion, with 27 bodies being recovered.
Read the original article on People
