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The rescue of the miner in Mexico mobilized 300 people and lasted 14 days — Francisco Zapata survived 300 meters deep in a flooded gold mine in Sinaloa, with water up to his waist and no light
On March 25, 2026, the miner in Mexico Francisco Zapata Nájera, 42, was working inside the Santa Fe gold mine, in the municipality of El Rosario, Sinaloa state.
At that moment, a tailings dam broke. Within minutes, water, mud, and sediments flooded the tunnels at a depth of 300 meters.
Of the 25 miners who were in the mine, 21 managed to escape on their own. However, four were trapped.
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That is, Francisco Zapata was one of them — and he would spend almost 14 days in total darkness, not knowing if anyone would come to rescue him.
How 300 rescuers tried to reach the miner in Mexico for over 300 hours
The rescue operation mobilized around 300 people, including divers from the Mexican Army (Sedena), Civil Protection teams, and volunteers from the region.
In addition, the rescuers installed 3 kilometers of electrical cables to illuminate the flooded tunnels and positioned high-capacity pumps to drain the water.
In practice, every meter advanced represented a risk: the walls could collapse at any moment, and the mud made visibility almost zero.
Even so, cameras and search dogs were sent inside the tunnels, trying to locate the four missing men.
Thus, five days after the collapse, the team found and rescued the first of the four trapped miners. This way, the hope of finding the others increased.
However, Francisco Zapata remained missing. With each passing day, the chances decreased.
The flashlight signal that saved the miner in Mexico after 13 days
Finally, thirteen days after the collapse, military divers advanced through the still partially flooded tunnels.
In total darkness, 300 meters below the surface, something caught their attention: a blinking light.
Indeed, it was a flashlight. Francisco Zapata was turning it on and off repeatedly — the only signal he could send to indicate that he was still alive.
When the divers reached him, they found the miner in Mexico standing, with water up to his waist, in complete darkness.
Then, the first soldier said: “We came to rescue you, we are from the Mexican Army.”
In response, Zapata’s first question had nothing to do with himself: “How is my family?”
Consequently, the phrase he repeated several times became a symbol of the rescue: “Yo no perdí la fe” — I did not lose faith.
This situation reminds us of other workers who face extreme conditions at similar depths, such as the workers who remove 800 thousand tons of rock at 1,520 meters deep in South Dakota.
The team took another 21 hours to safely extract the miner in Mexico
However, finding Zapata was just the beginning of the operation. Getting him out alive required another 21 hours of uninterrupted work.
To do this, the rescuers drained even more water from the tunnels and created a safe extraction path. Furthermore, they reinforced structures that threatened to collapse at any moment.
Thus, on the night of April 8, Francisco Zapata finally emerged from the mine.
The miner in Mexico emerged wrapped in a thermal blanket, sitting in an electric cart, under the applause of hundreds of people at the entrance of the Rampa Tortugas.
Then, the team evacuated him by helicopter to a hospital in Mazatlán. Zapata was dehydrated and weak, but conscious and stable.
Not all miners were as fortunate
On the same day that rescuers pulled Zapata out alive, at 7:43 PM, the team recovered the lifeless body of the third miner.
Subsequently, authorities transferred the body to the Fiscalía de Sinaloa for identification.
However, the fourth miner remains missing to this day. The search continues, but the chances decrease with each hour.
In total, of the 25 men who were in the mine when the dam broke, 22 survived. On the other hand, two died and one is still unaccounted for.
- Date of collapse: March 25, 2026, around 1 PM
- Location: Santa Fe gold mine, El Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico
- Depth: 300 meters
- Miners in the mine: 25 (21 escaped, 4 were trapped)
- Zapata’s time of entrapment: almost 14 days (~300+ hours)
- Rescue team: 300 people, 3 km of electrical cables
- Outcome: 2 rescued alive, 1 confirmed dead, 1 missing
What caused the tragedy at the Santa Fe mine
The collapse that trapped the four miners occurred due to the rupture of a tailings dam near the mine.
To understand the severity, tailings dams contain the solid and liquid waste generated during mineral extraction — a mixture of water, mud, chemicals, and rock fragments.
When one of these structures breaks, the material floods galleries, blocks exits, and turns dry tunnels into underwater traps in a matter of minutes.
Brazil is well aware of this type of tragedy. The ruptures in Mariana (2015) and Brumadinho (2019) killed hundreds of people and devastated entire communities.
At the Santa Fe mine, the scale of destruction was smaller. However, for the four men trapped 300 meters deep, the difference between a large dam and a small one is irrelevant when the water rises.
The exact cause of the rupture is still under investigation by Mexican authorities. The mine operates with private concessions, and the level of oversight in smaller operations is often limited.
Just as in the oil sector, where companies drill kilometers of rock under extreme conditions, mining requires safety protocols that operators do not always follow.
The president of Mexico called the rescue “amazing”
The president Claudia Sheinbaum described the rescue of the miner in Mexico as “incredible” and “amazing.”
In a public statement, Sheinbaum praised Zapata’s resilience and the work of the Mexican Army.
However, the case also reignited the debate about safety in mines in the country. The Santa Fe mine operates with five concessions for gold and silver extraction, in a region where informal and inadequately regulated mining is common.
Accidents in Mexican mines happen frequently — and rarely end with someone coming out alive after 14 days.
Why surviving 14 days at 300 meters is so rare in global mining
Surviving almost two weeks at 300 meters deep in a partially flooded tunnel, with no light and minimal supplies, represents an exceptionally rare feat in mining history.
In comparison, the most emblematic case of prolonged survival occurred with the 33 Chilean miners in 2010, who were trapped for 69 days in the San José mine in Copiapó. However, they had access to a dry shelter with emergency supplies.
Zapata, on the other hand, had no prepared shelter. He stood with water up to his waist, in absolute darkness.
According to NPR, the difference between Zapata and the other two miners who did not survive may have been a matter of meters — the position in the tunnel, the water level, the access to an air pocket.
According to Mexico News Daily, the UN considers mining the most dangerous profession in the world. In Brazilian legislation, it is classified as an activity of “maximum unhealthiness.”
Still, millions of workers descend every day hundreds of meters below the earth to extract the minerals that sustain the global economy.
Francisco Zapata proved that sometimes the difference between living and dying at the bottom of a mine depends on a flashlight, the position in the tunnel — and not losing faith.
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