Hope All but Extinguished at Utah Mine
Pastor Dale Morgan
Aug 19, 10:55 PM EDT
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Hope All but Extinguished at Utah Mine*
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Associated Press Writer
HUNTINGTON, Utah (AP) -- Six coal miners caught in a cave-in may never
be found and could forever be lost to the still-quivering mountain,
officials conceded Sunday, abandoning the optimism they've maintained
publicly for nearly two weeks.
Relatives responded by accusing federal officials and the mine's owners
of quitting on the rescue effort and leaving the men for dead.
"We feel that they've given up and that they are just waiting for the
six miners to expire," said Sonny Olsen, a spokesman for the families,
reading from a prepared statement as about 70 relatives of the trapped
miners stood behind him.
Air readings from a fourth hole drilled more than 1,500 feet into the
mountainside found insufficient oxygen to support life, and the latest
efforts to signal the men were again met by silence.
"It's likely these miners may not be found," said Rob Moore, vice
president of Murray Energy Corp., co-owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine.
The news marked a shift in tone in mine officials' assessments of the
chances the men would be rescued, hopes they had maintained even after
three rescuers were killed and six more hurt Thursday in another "bump"
inside the mountain.
The families of the missing miners demanded that rescuers immediately
begin drilling a 30-inch hole into which a rescue capsule could be lowered.
"We are here at the mercies of the officials in charge and their
so-called experts. Precious time is being squandered here, and we do not
have time to spare," Olsen said.
Christopher Van Bever, an attorney for Murray Energy, said the company
had no immediate response to the families' statement. A spokesman for
the federal Mining Safety and Health Administration did not immediately
return a call seeking comment.
A rescue capsule was used in 2002 to pluck nine trapped miners from the
flooded Quecreek mine in western Pennsylvania. But those miners were
only about 230 feet below the surface, and the drilling took place on a
gently rolling dairy farm.
The Utah miners are believed to be more than 1,500 feet beneath the
surface, with drillers having to work atop a steep sandstone cliff.
Also, at Quecreek, rescue workers heard tapping sounds hours after the
miners became trapped, indicating at least some of them were alive. Work
began on the rescue shaft later that day, and the whole ordeal was over
in just over three days.
At Crandall Canyon, there has been little evidence that the six miners
survived the initial Aug. 6 collapse. Workers have gained limited access
to the mine through four boreholes into which video cameras and
microphones were lowered. All attempts to signal the miners have met
with silence.
Video images taken from the fourth hole showed signs of collapse in the
cavern but no indication the miners were there, said Richard Stickler,
head of MSHA.
Engineering experts gathered at the mine Sunday to try to figure out a
safe way of reaching the missing men. Underground tunneling has been
halted since Thursday's deaths, and Moore expressed doubt that the
effort would resume.
"We just simply cannot take the unacceptable risk and put additional
lives in harm's way," he said.
Moore had been far more upbeat Saturday night, when he insisted the men
may be alive. But he said oxygen readings and video images taken from
the fourth hole had changed his mind about the miners' probable fate.
Oxygen levels in the hole are just 11 to 12 percent, incompatible with
life. Normal oxygen levels are 21 percent.
Workers started Sunday on a fifth borehole into the mountain, more than
2,000 feet down, but Moore said he expected to find insufficient air in
that hole as well.
"Our thoughts and our prayers and our deepest sympathies go out to the
families - for all those families involved in the two tragedies here,"
he said.
Moore met with family members Sunday morning for what he called a "very
difficult, very emotional" discussion. He said their response then was
one of frustration, not anger.
"They're responding as I'm sure any of us would respond. They want to
see their loved ones again. I want to be able to provide that but I
can't give any guarantees we're going to be able to," he said.
The challenge of tunneling to the trapped miners is daunting. No support
system can withstand the explosive force of a mountain bump because
those forces are nearly impossible to predict, Stickler said. Once one
coal pillar collapses, the weight it had carried gets transferred to
adjacent coal pillars, setting off a chain reaction.
"The mountain continues to be active, continues to move," Stickler said
Sunday. "As the weight causes pillar failures in one area of the mine,
then that weight is shifted to adjacent pillars and that process seems
to be migrating out from the original area where the bump activity started."
If tunneling doesn't restart, part of the mine will have been turned
into a tomb. Despite that, Moore said there is recoverable coal in other
parts of the 5,000-acre mine, and the company expected to resume
operations at some point. He said he didn't discuss that prospect with
family members.