Angry relatives of 65 workers trapped inside a Mexican coal mine accused the company of negligence on Wednesday as rescuers inched slowly toward the men, hoping they were still alive, Reuters reported. Rescue teams were still 30 meters (100 feet) from the spot where two of the men were when a gas explosion ripped through the mine and collapsed tunnels early on Sunday, and progress was agonizingly slow. At the gates of the Pasta de Conchos mine in the northern state of Coahuila, families exhausted by the long wait accused mine owners and even union leaders of ignoring repeated safety warnings. "They're not the ones who go down there so they don't give a damn," wailed Laura Calzoncit, whose uncle was one of the 65 men trapped inside the deep coal shafts. "This is too much, we don't believe what they are telling us. It is pure lies," she cried, hugging her mother by a smoldering fire. Raul Alvarez used to work in the mine and said he left because conditions were terrible. He has spent two days without sleep at the main gate, waiting for word on the fate of a brother and two brothers-in-law. "This was a time bomb," he said of the mine, where workers earn about $60 a week. Women screamed when a local newspaper was handed around, showing photographs of workers digging a long line of graves at a nearby cemetery, apparently to prepare for dead miners. --More 22 58 Local Time 19 58 GMT
