Huntington Canyon, Utah – About 200 employees of Utah American Energy Inc. were working to rescue six trapped miners in central Utah’s Crandall Canyon coal mine Monday night, but one of the most promising rescue options was scrubbed when multiple cave-ins in a parallel shaft were discovered.
Rescuers had hoped to take the parallel shaft deep into the mountain and then cut across the soft coal wall into the area where the miners were trapped, but the option was halted by loose coal.
Robert Murray, chief executive and president of Cleveland- based Murray Energy Corp., the mine’s parent company, said he did not look forward to telling the families that news.
Though pledging optimism, Murray said he had no proof that the men were still alive. “We have no idea whether the damage in the mine extended to the area where the miners are,” he said.
Murray said he hoped the cave-in had simply sealed the miners off in a large space with plenty of air. Murray described the area where the men were working as having 8-foot ceilings and an 18-foot width, with a temperature of 58 degrees. The miners’ only source of illumination would be the lamps attached to their hard hats.
Rescuers are focusing on the 1,700 feet of shaft between the rescuers and the area where the miners were working. Murray said he does not know whether the rubble extends the entire 1,700 feet.
“We’ll get them back,” he said, “but it may be as much as three days.”
Most of the work is being done by heavy machinery.A helicopter will help deliver a large drill this morning that will bore in from the top of the mountain. That method will take three days to reach the miners, Murray said. Bulldozers are cutting roads for a second drill that might reach the miners in two days, he said.
Four other workers in the mine at the time of the collapse escaped, Murray said. The company employs 700 miners in four Utah mines and operates 11 coal mines nationally.
The men are believed trapped in a section of the mine 3.4 miles from the entrance.
The University of Utah Seismograph Stations suggested that the mine collapse may have been the magnitude-3.9 seismic event recorded Monday morning. Scientists said there is little evidence that an earthquake triggered the mine collapse. Since the mid-1990s, at least half a dozen other mine collapses have caused similar seismic waves.
Murray insisted that an earthquake caused the collapse.
Relatives of the miners waited for news at a nearby senior center. Many don’t speak English, so Huntington Mayor Hilary Gordon hugged them, put her hands over her heart and then clasped them together to let them know she was praying for them, she said.
“Past experience tells us these things don’t go very well,” she said. Her husband is a former miner.
Outside, Ariana Sanchez, 16, said her father Manuel Sanchez, 42, was among the trapped miners. She said she cried when her mother told her the news and declined to comment further.
The mine uses a method called “retreat mining,” in which pillars of coal are used to hold up an area of the mine’s roof. When that area is completely mined, the company pulls the pillar and grabs the useful coal, causing an intentional collapse. Experts say it is one of the most dangerous mining methods.
Government mine inspectors have issued 325 citations against the mine since January 2004, according to a quick analysis of federal Mine Safety and Health Administration online records. Of those, 116 violations were “significant and substantial,” meaning they are likely to cause injury.
The 325 safety violations are not an unusual total, said J. Davitt McAteer, former head of the MSHA.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly not bad,” he said. “It would be in the medium range.”
Last month, inspectors cited the mine for violating a rule requiring that at least two separate passageways be designated for escape in an emergency.
Asked about safety, Murray said: “I believe we run a very safe coal mine. We’ve had an excellent record.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
