Mexican authorities recover the body of a miner trapped in a Sinaloa gold mine collapse

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities on Monday located the body of a miner who had been trapped for over a month following the collapse of a gold mine in the northern state of Sinaloa.

The body of Leandro Isidro Beltrán Reséndiz, 54, was recovered in the early hours of Monday, according to the National Civil Protection Coordination. He was one of four miners caught in the March 25 disaster.

The collapse was triggered by the failure of a tailings dam, a structure built to contain water and mining waste. Of the 25 people working in the mine at the time of the accident, 21 managed to escape the site on their own.

Five days after the collapse, search teams pulled one miner alive from the wreckage at a depth of 300 meters (984 feet). A second worker was miraculously rescued on April 7, however, the hope of that discovery was soon tempered by the recovery of a third miner’s body.

In August 2022, 10 miners died when the El Pinabete coal mine in Coahuila flooded — a disaster that sparked intense controversy by revealing how many Mexican laborers work without essential safety protections or official supervision. Authorities worked for weeks to pump water out of the mine, hoping they could send in rescuers, but were never able to keep water out and stabilize the mine shaft sufficiently. The miners’ bodies were not recovered.

Mexico’s deadliest mining accident took place in February 2006 at the Pasta de Conchos mine in Coahuila, where an explosion killed 65 workers.

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