3 Rescue Workers Killed at Utah Mine
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By PAUL FOY
The Associated Press
Friday, August 17, 2007; 2:54 AM
HUNTINGTON, Utah -- A disastrous cave-in Thursday night killed three
rescue workers and injured at least six others who were trying to
tunnel through rubble to reach trapped miners, authorities said.
Mining officials were considering whether to suspend the rescue
effort.
It was a shocking setback on the 11th day of the effort to find six
miners who have been confined at least 1,500 feet below ground at the
Crandall Canyon mine. It's unknown if the six are alive or dead.
Six of the injured were taken to Castleview Hospital in Price. One
died there, one was airlifted to a Salt Lake City hospital, one was
released and three were being treated, said Jeff Manley, the
hospital's chief executive.
The second dead worker passed away at Utah Valley Regional Medical
Center in Provo, said hospital spokeswoman Janet Frank. Another worker
there was in critical condition with head trauma but was alert, she
said.
The third death was confirmed by Rich Kulczewski, spokesman for the
U.S. Department of Labor, but additional details were not immediately
available.
No official cause of death has been given for any of the deaths.
Authorities said the cave-in was caused by a mountain bump, which
commonly refers to pressure inside the mine that shoots coal from the
walls with great force. Seismologists say such an event caused the
Aug. 6 cave-in that trapped six men inside the central Utah mine.
Thursday's bump at 8:39 p.m. showed up as a magnitude 1.6 seismic
event at University of Utah seismograph stations in Salt Lake City,
said university spokesman Lee Siegel.
Family members of miners, many in tears, gathered at the mine's front
entrance looking for news.
A mine employee, Donnie Leonard, said he was outside the mine when he
heard a manager "yelling about a cave-in."
A woman who answered the phone at the mine said mine co-owner Bob
Murray, chief of Murray Energy Corp., was not available for comment.
It was not immediately clear where those who were injured were working
or what they were doing when they were hurt. Crews have been drilling
holes from the top of the mountain to try to find the miners while
others were tunneling through a debris-filled entry to the mine.
Underground, the miners had advanced to only 826 feet in nine days.
Mining officials said conditions in the mine were treacherous, and
they were frequently forced to halt digging because of seismic
activity. A day after the initial collapse, the rescuers were pushed
back 300 feet when a bump shook the mountain and filled the tunnel
with rubble.
Before Thursday's incident, workers still had about 1,200 feet to go
to reach the area where they believe the trapped men had been working.
The digging had been set back Wednesday night, when a coal excavating
machine was half buried by rubble by seismic shaking. Another mountain
bump interrupted work briefly Thursday morning.
"The seismic activity underground has just been relentless. The
mountain is still alive, the mountain is still moving and we cannot
endanger the rescue workers as we drive toward these trapped miners,"
Murray said earlier Thursday.
Murray had become more reticent to predict when the excavation would
be complete. At the current rate, it was expected to take several more
days.
On top the mountain, rescuers were drilling a fourth hole, aiming for
a spot where they had detected mysterious vibrations in the mountain.
That drilling was believed to be continuing after the latest accident,
but the mine was evacuated and officials haven't decided whether to
suspend the rescue effort, Kulczewski said.
Officials said Thursday that the latest of three holes previously
drilled reached an intact chamber with potentially breathable air.
Video images were obscured by water running down that bore hole, but
officials said they could see beyond it to an undamaged chamber in the
rear of the mine. It yielded no sign the miners had been there.
Murray said it would take at least two days for the latest drill to
reach its target, in an area where a seismic listening device detected
a "noise" or vibration in 1.5-second increments and lasting for five
minutes.
Officials say it's impossible to know what caused the vibrations and
on Thursday clarified the limits of the technology.
The device, called a geophone, can pinpoint the direction of the
source of the disturbance, but it can't tell whether it came from
within the mine, the layers of rock above the mine or from the
mountain's surface, said Richard Stickler, chief of the federal Mine
Safety and Health Administration.
The "noise," a term he used a day before, wasn't anything officials
could hear, Stickler said. "Really, it's not sounds but vibrations."
Officials stressed that the motion picked up by the geophones could be
unrelated to the mine, even as they drilled the new hole in an effort
to uncover the source of it.
Together with the discovery of an intact chamber and breathable oxygen
levels, the baffling vibrations offered only a glimmer of hope for
rescuing the miners, but Murray had seized on the developments.
"The air is there, the water is there _ everything is there to sustain
them indefinitely until we get to them," he said.
Officials said results of air quality samples taken from the intact
chamber, accessed by the third deep borehole, showed oxygen levels of
roughly 15 to 16 percent.
Normal oxygen levels are 21 percent, and readings in other parts of
the mine taken since the Aug. 6 collapse have registered levels as low
as 7 percent.
At 15 percent oxygen, a person would experience effects such as
elevated heart and breathing rates, Stickler said.
Video images from the same shaft showed an undamaged section complete
with a ventilation curtain that divides intake air from exhaust air.
Behind the curtain, in theory, the men might have found refuge and
breathable air when the mine collapsed 10 days ago.
___
Associated Press writers Chris Kahn and Alicia A. Caldwell in
Huntington, Ed White in Salt Lake City, and Jennifer Talhelm in
Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081700140_pf.html