Border tunnelsFive people rescued from sewage-filled cross-border tunnel
Border Patrol agents and firefighters rescue five people trapped in a sewage-filled trans-border tunnel near Chula Vista, California
Those who have watched human and drug smuggling operations along the Mexican border are seldom surprised by the methods used. The dangerous, and frequently-discussed, overland route across the border is the image of smuggling operations, but by no means the only method. And many are dangerous, sometimes with tragic results.
Traffickers have used the overland desert route, of course, but have also smuggled drugs by the often-undetected single passenger ultralight aircraft. Drugs and people have been concealed in trucks. Contraband has crossed the border by boat, of both the surface type as well as via small submarines.
Sometimes the results can be humorous, as when an illegal immigrant was stopped trying to be smuggled across the border disguised as a minivan car seat, sown into the upholstery, posing as the seat’s stuffing.
Many times, the traffickers make use of tunnels under the border. Some of them are elaborate constructions, with elevators, lighting, ventilation and mining cart-type rail systems to facilitate cargo movement, while others are long tubes that are drilled by machine from the inside of buildings.
Many of these tunnels are temporary affairs, hastily-dug and shoddily-constructed that are inherently unstable, more than ready to yield tragic results.
NBC San Diego reports that such a tragedy was averted when five people were trapped in a sewage-filled tunnel in Otay Mesa, near Chula Vista, California. The four men and one woman were trapped at a point in the tunnell where a fence had made it impossible to move further.
Border Patrol agents used a dog to find an entrance behind a factory, then according to NBC, San Diego and Chula Vista firefighters worked for nearly an hour dig them out, extracting them one at a time. The rescued were then hosed off because of the exposure to sewage, though all were determined to be healthy and without physical injury.
A robot was later sent down the tunnel to investigate, but it got stuck in the tunnel not far from its launch point.
Since the early 1990’s, there have been an estimated 125 tunnels of varying construction discovered under the Mexican border, though most are crudely built.
