No sign of life in Utah coal mine

Published 10:27 pm Friday, August 10, 2007

HUNTINGTON, Utah — The effort to find six coal miners caught in a cave-in took a disheartening turn Friday when a narrow hole drilled more than 1,800 feet down into the earth yielded no sounds of life and barely any oxygen.

The drill entered an area where the miners were thought to be working at the time of Monday’s collapse. Mine officials had earlier thought their drill had simply hit a sealed, abandoned area of the mine that had little oxygen.

Readings of air composition at the bore hole showed there was not enough oxygen to support life. But officials kept up hope, saying the miners may have fled to another area that could have more oxygen.

“It’s difficult to say. I’m not going to speculate,” Rob Moore, vice president of Murray Energy Corp., a co-owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine, said Friday evening.

Initial readings showing oxygen levels above 20 percent — a breathable atmosphere — were samples from the bore hole itself and not the mine, said Bob Murray, chief of Murray Energy. There was no sign of carbon dioxide to indicate the exhalations of people.

When the drill was raised a few feet to clear it from debris, the oxygen readings fell to just over 7 percent and have remained there, said Richard Stickler, head of the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

“Normal oxygen is 21 percent,” he said. “Once you get down to 15 percent you start having effects, and at 7 percent, it would not support life very long.”

Mine officials said the drill drifted on its long descent through the hard sandstone and speculated that it had penetrated an old, sealed-off work area, where low oxygen levels would be expected. Further measurements showed the drill actually hit an active mining section.

A second, wider hole being drilled into the same area of the mine had come within about 240 feet of breaking through as of Friday evening. When it does, rescuers will drop down audio and visual equipment that could pick up signs of life. The 1,886-foot hole would also be big enough to send down food and water, Stickler said.

Separately, rescuers tried to make their way horizontally toward the miners, struggling to remove the rubble from the mine shaft. But it could take another week to actually reach the men and bring them out.