The pain is physical. That is why it took less than a second for Anael to collapse and fall, hard, against the ground. The surface received him, heavy and of medium build, without flinching. The earth just made a ‘crack’ and dust rose around his flesh. The speed that a body that can’t stand pain picks up is different. And the silence that seizes others when they see a man fall, without self-control, seems obvious.
Oh my Dario. Oh. Oh. Oh my Dario. Ayyy: Take me, Darío!!!”. Anael was the father of Hernán Darío Guisao Gutiérrez, one of the six miners who were trapped in the Nueva Nechí coal minein Amagá, on July 20.
trapped miners
It may interest you: At least two soldiers died in clashes with Farc dissidents in Ituango, Antioquia
Early yesterday, people learned about the discovery: after pumping nearly 100,000 cubic meters of water and raising part of a fence, almost 280 meters from the entrance to the mine shaft, first responders who worked 12-hour shifts for 28 days straight found the first of the miners.
Anael did not know if her son was the first body that the rescuers found at 11:00 pm on Wednesday; if he was the second, found at 6:00 am yesterday; or if he was the third, the fourth or the fifth, located together, also yesterday, at 8:44 am, he knew, yes, that he was not the sixth, the one that other family members were expecting and that, Until the closing of this edition, it had not yet appeared: Héctor Fabián Osorio, the only one of the six miners based in Amagá, but whose family had to come looking for him from Pereira.
Anael came from Fredonia with his wife, Luz Dary Gutiérrez, to confirm that their son was dead. To collapse onto the shoulders of his mate and then drop her body to the ground, begging that Darío, her child, take him to heaven. To later tell, unrecognizable, full of calm, that he had no hope of finding him alive.
Because he, uh, Hail Mary, was also a miner. And if it is land that falls, there is a chance to get out alive. But if it’s water, as happened with the bag that exploded in the mine and then caused an avalanche, “From the first day they were dead.”
Anael’s prognosis is not yet verifiable. Until yesterday it was learned that his son Hernán Darío, José Ramón Giraldo, Luis Eduardo Serna, Robinson Albey Gutiérrez and Jhon Mueriel Serna -the other trapped miners- they were found lifeless. It is unknown if the impact of the water or subsequent suffocation caused their death. But there is a certainty in Anael’s look when he points to a cement factory with his right arm and forefinger, and says that the evil that caused the emergency could have come from there: the tragedy that will not turn the page for six families.
When Anael falls, so do the rest of the people gathered in Nueva Nechí. They do it in their own way: some scream, others cry, others simply their eyes bulge or they do nothing more than raise their hands to their faces. Others, like Anael, faint.
Also read: Earthquake in Colombia: cracked houses, landslides and closed roads in Meta
And the dialogues and scenes of pain appear everywhere: “Commander, three fell.” Screams. “This is fucked up, Commander.” She is a woman, from the fire department, the one who speaks. “There, there. Let me go, let me go.” What happened? we asked. “They just got the news, that they were found dead,” a policeman replies.
Nueva Nechí, where the entrance to the mine cannot be seen because the area is cordoned off by the Army, is reduced to two second-story houses each. Or better, one with two floors and another half-built, which stopped work, since six men were trapped there.
In the first house are the relatives of the miners. There, in the administrative headquarters of the mine, there are clothes hanging, drying in the sun, as if this had been a room for a long time. Then they appear the tents in which the relatives of Héctor Fabián camp, who came from Pereira.
Among those improvised bedrooms, the empty bottles and the half-packed suitcases, the tenant’s eyes appear later; eyes that They cry like those from Amagá, like those from Fredonia, like those from La Sabaleta, like those from Palomar, all areas close to the mine.
“They’re dead, fagot,” a woman says on the phone, gripping it tightly, her fingertips seeming to dig into it. “Yes, they’re dead,” she insists, while several of those who waited there for days also grab their phones.
“I am a warrior,” says Luz Dary, Anael’s wife and Hernán Darío’s mother, later, beating her chest. From above, on the second floor, a roar shakes the almost 100 people who are present in Nueva Nechí: There are relatives, firefighters, lifeguards. Anael is already on her feet.
“One at 11:00 pm, another at 6:00 am and the other three right now, at 8:44.” Five then? “Add up, add up.” And the other? “We continue to search.” And the atmosphere, very heavy? “It’s not breathable.” Then, the search stopped… “The work has not stopped, we simply removed the lifeguards for safety.” Is there water at the bottom of the mine? “There is, little, but there is.” Many difficulties? “No more”.
The answers are delivered, reluctantly, by the engineer who, until yesterday, was leading the rescue efforts. Wrapped in a green uniform, helmet, boots, he tries to calm down the relatives of the miners and then walking towards the half-built two-story house, He says that he will not answer any more questions, that he is not the spokesperson, that we should not misinform. The engineer climbs some narrow, sloping ladders, gets lost among more green jumpsuits, then the mayor appears.
The president says that the mine is uncomfortable, that it is not known how many meters Héctor Fabián is, that they had to remove the personnel from the tunnels because there was gas contamination. “We hydrate them, we vaccinate them. The one that is missing could be about 20 meters away.”
The mine does not have plans, they have been built in the middle of the rescue work. There, in the house that is not finished yet, is the board with traces of black and red marker that has allowed us to imagine the bowels of Nueva Nechí. It looks like a map of a city, with streets and roads, and not that of a mine.
It reads: day 28 of the emergency. Pithead. Track length 230 meters. Critical points. In red there are also circles and arrows. They are the coordinates to find the missing miner, but the work is suspended, some lifeguards also finished their shift. For 12 hours of work, 18 rest. They are all miners, some were even there the day of the emergency and offered to help.
The environment? “Humidity, lots of water. Sometimes it feels heavy,” says one of the rescuers. Can you breathe? “It’s hard”. The rescue work that led to the discovery yesterday involved three shifts with crews of almost 20 rescuers. They only went out to eat, says one, and the round trips implied, each way, between 15 and 20 minutes. At that time on the surface they spent almost a month underground, in batches, waiting.
“We suspect where the missing one is, we haven’t located it yet”says another lifeguard.
on this second floor strategy meetings were held to find the disappeared. Until yesterday, even, the shift change was marked amid applause and hugs. Of course: there was not a single legal medicine official, nor criminal investigation cars, nor priests who officiated mass before a Mary Help of Christians illuminated by five candles. Yesterday there were.
The scream that Anael hears when he is already on his feet is from the mother of Luis Eduardo, another of the miners. She, on the second floor of the first house, places her back on a chair and her feet accommodate them on another. Or, better yet, they do everything for her. Five people. The fire chief. He, Leaving other tasks behind, he caresses the face of the old woman who suffers from the death of her son.
He does it with a tender, childish gesture, with funny faces that fail and do not even capture a timid smile. Then Cristian Serna tells that his mother was transferred to the Amagá hospital. He couldn’t take the shock, and even he, 22, still looks stupefied.
Cristian was at the mine on July 20 when the emergency occurred. He left at 11:00 am, just after he tripped and the hammer in his hand fell on his right foot. He was in the hospital, they took stitches. There he received the call from the mine secretary, whom everyone mentions because she was in charge of communicating the news.
That an explosion with water had trapped his brother, Luis Eduardo, the second of the six children and his teacher in mining. Like Anael’s son, he had been in the business for almost 20 years. In fact, in the two and a half years that he spent in Nueva Nechí, Cristian did not separate from Luis Eduardo. As the news of the miners’ find arrived, the families underwent DNA tests for the comparison of the bodies, they requested a collective funeral.
And did your son, Anael, look like you? “It was my portrait. Knowing him was like seeing me.” And your lady, how is she? “Quieter. This is a rest: finding it, that it was not broken, that it came out whole ”.
In Nueva Nechí there is stillness after hours of turmoil. The criminal investigation car that started screaming when it took away some of the bodies is already traveling far, towards Medellín. The exclamations cease, the pleas stop for a moment. The area is still cordoned off. The day ended without a new ‘ay’, without news from Héctor Fabián.
Colpress.
More information: At least 4 people were injured by a fire in Medellín
