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Seismic shifts stall rescue, owner says

Trapped miners cannot be reached for at least a week, he says.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published August 8, 2007

HUNTINGTON, Utah - Seismic activity "totally shut down" efforts to reach six miners trapped below ground and wiped out all the work done in the past day, a mine executive said Tuesday.

"We are back to Square One underground," said Robert Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., owner of the Crandall Canyon mine.

Still, "we should know within 48 to 72 hours the status of those trapped miners," Murray said.

Rescue crews are drilling two holes into the mountain in an effort to communicate with the miners - provided they are still alive.

Unstable conditions below ground have thwarted rescuers' efforts to break through to the miners, who have been trapped 1,500 feet below the surface for nearly two days, Murray said.

The seismic activity and other factors "have totally shut down our rescue efforts underground," he said.

Rescuers were able to get within 1,700 feet Monday but had advanced only 310 feet more since then, Murray said earlier Tuesday. The seismic shocks caused cave-ins that blocked even that progress, he said.

"There is absolutely no way that, through our underground rescue effort, we can reach the vicinity of the trapped miners for at least one week," Murray said.

The National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado said 10 seismic shocks have been recorded since the collapse, but only one since 3 a.m. Tuesday. That one struck at 3:42 p.m. with a magnitude of 1.7.

Flashes of anger

Murray has insisted the cave-in was caused by an earthquake. But government seismologists have said the pattern of ground-shaking picked up by their instruments around the time of the accident Monday appeared to have been caused not by an earthquake, but by the cave-in itself.

"Based on the information and preliminary analysis we've done so far, this event doesn't look like a natural event. It doesn't have the proper characteristics of a natural earthquake," said Rafael Abreu, a geologist for the earthquake information center. "Even though it's not a natural earthquake, it could still generate aftershocks."

Murray lashed out at the news media for suggesting his men were conducting "retreat mining," a method in which miners pull down the last standing pillars of coal and let the roof fall in.

"This was caused by an earthquake, not something that Murray Energy ... did or our employees did or our management did," Murray said, his voice often rising in anger. "It was a natural disaster. An earthquake. And I'm going to prove it to you."

Amy Louviere, a spokeswoman for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration in Washington, said the men at the mine were, in fact, conducting retreat mining. However, Louviere said that exactly what the miners were doing, and whether that led to the collapse, can be answered only after a full investigation.

Retreat mining has been blamed for 13 deaths since 2000, and the government requires mining companies to submit a roof control plan before beginning such mining. Such a plan details how and when the pillars will be cut and in what order.

The mine had submitted such a plan and received approval in 2006, Louviere said.

"As long as they abide by that plan, it can be a very safe form of mining," she said.

More than a day and a half after the cave-in, rescuers were unable to say whether the men were dead or alive, and had not heard any pounding from their hammers, as miners are trained to do when they get trapped.

Murray said if the men were not killed by the cave-in itself, he believed there was enough air and water for them to survive for days. But the government's chief mine inspector in the West was not as confident.

"We're hoping there's air down there. We have no way of knowing that," said Al Davis of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Little was known about the six miners; only one has been identified. The Mexican Consulate in Salt Lake City said three of the men are Mexican citizens.

[Last modified August 8, 2007, 01:50:34]