Rescue teams hope to be “hours” from entering the mine in Mexico where 10 miners were trapped

Mother of trapped miner to AMLO: Thank you for taking the photo with my pain 5:17 (CNN) — A week after 10 miners were trapped in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, rescuers hope to be “at hours” of entering the mine to help them, according to Laura Velázquez, the country’s national coordinator for Civil Protection, at a press conference on Wednesday. Velázquez commented that “it has been an intense week, with a lot of commitment, and we hope to be within hours” of entering the mine to rescue the miners. “Yesterday, the volume of water extracted was 21,787 cubic meters (more than 5.7 million gallons), and the total volume extracted since last Wednesday, August 3, has been 125,453 cubic meters (more than 33 million gallons). The outflow is 252 (66.5 gallons) liters per second in the last 24 hours,” Velásquez explained. “There is no problem for the rescuers, so they can enter at any time. And that is why we are very close, Mr. President, to being able to enter this morning,” Velásquez told Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at the morning press conference. “In a few minutes we will have a meeting to make an evaluation with the Secretary of National Defense to see if the divers can enter shortly and obviously that all the rescuers have the necessary equipment to enter at any time. Hopefully today.” Velásquez added that the government deployed 672 people to the scene to help with the rescue efforts. Last Wednesday, August 3, the walls of a mine in the community of La Agujita (in Sabinas, Coahuila) collapsed due to the flooding of three connected wells, which trapped 10 of the 15 miners who worked there.