Every time Juan Briones descends deep into the ground to dig for coal in northern Mexico’s Coahuila state, he knows he has to balance earning a living and avoiding death.
Miners know the risks, Briones said, but often feel they have no choice in their town of Sabinas in Coahuila, where jobs are scarce. There are few options that can match the roughly $150 he takes home a week.
“You have the need to survive, to take care of your family”, the 35-year-old said in a recent interview at his home after his wife helped him scrub off the black dust that had settled into his skin after a day in a sweltering mine. The couple has four sons, aged six, eight, 10 and 15.
When he first descends, he sometimes feels as if he can’t breathe. He emerges at the end of the day, drenched in sweat.
In August, his brother-in-law Hugo Tijerina was one of 10 miners trapped in the nearby coal mine of El Pinabete as water broke through a shaft wall and flooded the tunnels the men were working in. Nearly two months later, their bodies have still not been recovered...
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