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Company says coal miners likely won't be found

By Asssociated Press
Published August 20, 2007

HUNTINGTON, Utah - Six coal miners caught in a cave-in may never be found, officials conceded Sunday, abandoning the optimism they have maintained publicly for nearly two weeks.

Relatives responded by accusing federal officials and the mine's owners of quitting on the rescue effort and leaving the men for dead.

"We feel that they've given up and that they are just waiting for the six miners to expire," said Sonny Olsen, a spokesman for the families, reading from a prepared statement as about 70 relatives of the trapped miners stood behind him.

Air readings from a fourth hole drilled more than 1,500 feet into the mountainside found insufficient oxygen to support life, and the latest efforts to signal the men were again met by silence.

There has been little evidence that the six miners survived the initial Aug. 6 collapse.

"It's likely these miners may not be found," said Rob Moore, vice president of Murray Energy Corp., co-owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine.

The news marked a shift in tone in mine officials' assessments of the chances the men would be rescued, hopes they had maintained even after three rescuers were killed and six more hurt Thursday when rock layers shifted inside the mountain.

The families of the missing miners demanded that rescuers immediately begin drilling a 30-inch hole into which a rescue capsule could be lowered.

Engineering experts from around the nation gathered at the mine Sunday to try to figure out a safe way of reaching the missing men. Underground tunneling has been halted since Thursday's deaths, and Moore expressed doubt that the tunneling effort would resume.

Workers started Sunday on a fifth borehole into the mountain, but Moore said he expected to find insufficient air in that hole as well.

[Last modified August 20, 2007, 00:58:09]