This story just keeps getting worse... I don't know if they are ever going to reach those miners. Two mine rescue workers die, seven hurt Drilling continues, but rescue team pulled out of collapsed mine BREAKING NEWS Updated: 2 minutes ago HUNTINGTON, Utah - A disastrous cave-in Thursday night killed two rescue workers and injured at least seven others who were trying to tunnel through rubble to reach six 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 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. “All rescue workers have been evacuated from the mine. Nine rescue workers were injured in the accident,” said Dirk Fillpot, a spokesman for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. One rescue worker was in very serious condition at Castleview Hospital, and two were in serious condition there, said Jeff Manley, hospital chief executive. At least one rescue worker was flown from the Crandall Canyon mine to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, said Jess Gomez, a spokesman for Salt Lake City’s LDS Hospital, which dispatches medical helicopters in Utah. Officials 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 occurred about 6:30 p.m. EDT. Family members of miners, many in tears, gathered at the mine’s front entrance looking for news. ‘Yelling about a cave-in’ A mine employee, Donnie Leonard, said he was outside the mine when he heard a manager “yelling about a cave-in.” It was not immediately clear where the rescuers hurt or killed were working or what they were doing at the time. 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 event, 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,” Bob Murray, chief of Murray Energy Corp., the co-owner and operator of the Crandall Canyon mine, said earlier Thursday. Murray has become more reticent to predict when the excavation would be complete. At the current rate, it figures 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. 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. Baffling vibrations 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 seized on the developments Thursday. “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. Nothing had been detected or heard since the five-minute period Wednesday, Stickler said Thursday.
I thought of a brilliant rescue tool: It digs a hole about two inches around into the ground - just big enough to snake a camera, speakers, and a microphone down into an area where miners might be trapped. If it finds miners, the camera, speakers, and microphone can be removed, and a tube can be used to pump water and baby food down to those who may be trapped. It could also pump in fresh breathable air. The drilled hole wouldn't be big enough to cause major structural damage, and it would allow rescuers to take their time and be more careful as they try to get to the miners.
3 rescue workers killed at Utah mine HUNTINGTON, Utah - The search for six miners missing deep underground was abruptly halted after a second cave-in killed three rescue workers and injured at least six others who were trying to tunnel through rubble to reach them. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070817/ap_on_re_us/utah_mine_collapse;_ylt=Ak7pEfaV8veFdgtzNZXQl2es0NUE
Actually what he said is not totally out of whack. Just over two weeks ago, dozens of Chinese miners had survived trapping in a flooded mine with the aid of feeding and ventilation pipes extended to more than 2600 feet below the ground before they were rescued.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/08/utah.mine/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/12/utah.mine.ap/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/11/utah.mine/index.html
Really tragic but incidents like this have me thinking about when do you decide that a rescue or recovery operation is too dangerous? Is it worth it to put more lives at risks to save people who are likely dead? Or in the case where people are recovering bodies from a dangerous location is it worth it to put more people at risk just to recovery someone's body?
