Each time Juan Briones descends deep into the ground of northern Mexico to dig for coal he knows he must balance earning a living and avoiding death.
Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com"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 scrub off the black dust that had settled into his skin after a day in a sweltering mine.Even before the El Pinabete mine disaster, he urged his eldest, who has left school, to avoid the risky work to which he has dedicated the past two decades of his life.
When he first goes down, he sometimes feels as if he can't breathe. He emerges later drenched in sweat. The disaster highlighted the dangers workers endure at small, unregulated mines in Mexico's coal heartland where people like Briones are hired informally and paid in cash to extract coal that formed in the earth in the Cretaceous period millions of years ago.
Briones' taut, lean frame belies the strength he possesses to work up to eight hours a day, wielding a pneumatic air gun to blast the rock and a shovel and cart to lug coal through underground tunnels.
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