The Mexican authorities introduced plans Monday to fulfil a longstanding promise to retrieve the our bodies of 63 coal miners killed in a 2006 mine collapse — and get some coal to burn on the identical time.
The settlement with victims’ family members is prone to reinforce President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s fame as a fan of fossil fuels, at a time when a lot of the world is popping away from them.
Solely two our bodies have been recovered after the explosion on the Pasta de Conchos mine within the northern state of Coahuila on Feb. 19, 2006. Sixty-three extra are nonetheless buried beneath tons of rock and coal.
On Monday, Lopez Obrador ordered the restoration effort to start “instantly,” and put the federal electrical energy fee, the nation’s public utility identified by its initials because the CFE, accountable for the dig.
One of many clauses of the settlement states that “the households current give their consent so that when the restoration is concluded, the CFE can take away the coal to provide itself.”
The Mexican utility nonetheless operates energy crops that burn coal and closely polluting gasoline oil. The CFE not too long ago made it tougher for personal renewable power corporations to convey wind and photo voltaic amenities — some already constructed — on-line, arguing they’d been given unfair benefits in pricing and transmission.
Some observers say the choice was influenced by Mexico’s have to do away with gasoline oil it produces as a part of refining.
Lopez Obrador has additionally made constructing new refineries and discovering extra oil a central a part of his financial plan.
Three earlier administrations determined to not attempt to get well the our bodies of the miners, saying it will be too harmful and expensive, with no assure of success. However victims’ family members have continued to press authorities on the problem and Lopez Obrador had promised them he would strive.
© 2020 The Canadian Press
