Salt Lake City – A video camera that was lowered down a seventh hole Thursday in search of six coal miners trapped inside a mountain found only a few feet of clear space and piles of rubble and mud, federal officials said.
The hole started plugging up, making it impossible for technicians to get a separate robotic camera 1,856 feet down into the Crandall Canyon Mine to look for signs of the men, said Rich Kulczewski, a spokesman for the Mine Safety and Health Administration. It’s not known whether the six men, not heard from since the Aug. 6 collapse, survived.
The video camera found 2 1/2 feet of clear space and 7 feet of rubble and mud, officials said. Another hole drilled earlier also was being tried, but the mud and rubble conditions were similar, Kulczewski said.
After the crews broke through the seventh hole about 4:15 a.m. Thursday, they rapped on the drill steel to try to signal the miners, but there was no response.
A decision was made to lower the robotic camera Thursday evening into a hole drilled Aug. 18 – despite an earlier determination that there was a risk of losing the camera in the effort, Kulczewski said. There was no estimate of how long that would take.
“We haven’t given up, but we’re running out of possibilities,” Kulczewski said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Labor Department said an independent review will be conducted of MSHA’s handling of the mine disaster.
Separately, MSHA announced its own investigation, led by the man who was in charge of the review of the Sago mine tragedy in West Virginia, where 12 people died in January 2006.
The six Utah miners have been trapped more than 1,500 feet below ground since the collapse. Three rescuers trying to tunnel to the men died during another collapse Aug. 16.
The MSHA investigation at Crandall Canyon would involve people with no ties to the agency’s Western district, which oversees safety at the mine, 120 miles south of Salt Lake City, agency chief Richard Stickler said.
