Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) alerted the Mexican government this week about the risk of an explosion in one of its coal mines and 80 miles away the risk of an "environmental tragedy" due to the possible spill of waste dangerous, according to the letter sent by the company to the federal Civil Protection system.
In a letter sent by AHMSA to the National Civil Protection Coordinator (belonging to the federal Ministry of Security and Citizen Protection), it reported that its "complex operational and financial crisis" has paralyzed they company, a situation that allowed union activists unrelated to the company to incite their workers to "extreme acts" of protest.
"In the Carboniferous Region of Coahuila, they block and prevent the entry of technical personnel to the mine (...), with which the fan that displaces the methane gas existing in the mantle is not attended, with the certain risk of an accumulation of firedamp gas and an explosion of unforeseeable consequences,” says the letter sent to its owner Laura Velázquez Alzúa.
The mine is the largest industrialized coal mine in the area, located in the northern city of Sabinas, Coahuila. Also 80 miles southwest of the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas.
AHMSA has a facility 75 miles south of the mine, where civil protection was alerted that company workers were being prevented from entering, including technicians specialized in the control of sensitive equipment and materials, mainly chemicals, fuels, and hazardous waste.
"(The) mismanagement can cause anything from personal accidents to an environmental tragedy that affects the community in general," AHMSA warned the Mexican government.
Other damage generated by the blockades is the flooding of the Hércules mine, the main source of iron ore for AHMSA. In addition to the theft and damage to company assets, such as the theft of a few kilometers of the rail pipeline (296 kilometers long) to transport the iron ore from the mine to the steel company.
In addition to Civil Protection, AHMSA said, the vandalism has already been reported to the Coahuila authorities, as well as to the federal Labor Secretariat.