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HUNTINGTON, Utah (AP) - An all-day push to reach six coal miners was declared a failure Monday night as rescuers struggled with falling rock and other debris to find men trapped 1,500 feet below ground.
The miners' conditions still were not known, more than 16 hours after a cave-in so powerful that authorities initially thought it was an earthquake. "I'm very disappointed. That's one step backward," Robert E. Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp. of Cleveland, a part owner of the Crandall Canyon mine, told reporters at an evening briefing.
Rescuers planned to spend the night bulldozing a road outside the mine to make way for a drilling rig that can punch holes large enough to improve ventilation and determine if the miners were dead or alive, Murray said. They also planned to continue drilling elsewhere inside and outside the mine, he said.
There has been no contact with the men, although they should have enough air and water to last several days, Murray said. "They could have been struck by material and injured or killed, but we don't know that yet," he said. "I would stay up and work all night for a week if I could get them out alive."
Some rescue crews "ran into impassable conditions and actually were driven out of here," Murray said, pointing to a map of the mine.
The mine is built into a mountain in the rugged Manti-La Sal National Forest, 140 miles south of Salt Lake City, in a sparsely populated area.
By mid-afternoon, rescuers were within 1,700 feet of the miners' presumed location. In Huntington, about 10 miles from the mine, relatives of the miners waited for news at a senior center.
Many family members don't speak English, so Mayor Hilary Gordon said she hugged them, put her hands over her heart and then clasped them together to let them know she was praying for them.
"Past experience tells us these things don't go very well," said Gordon, whose husband is a former miner. Outside the senior center, 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 further comment.
The miners were believed to be about four miles from the mine entrance. Rescuers spent the day working to free the men by drilling into the mine vertically from the mountaintop and horizontally from the side, Murray said. If they are able to open an old mine shaft, he said, rescuers believe they can get within 100 feet of where the men are trapped.
"The idea is to get a hole into where they are," Murray said earlier Monday. "They could be in a chamber 1,000 feet long or they could be dead. We just don't know right now."
University of Utah seismograph stations recorded seismic waves of 3.9 magnitude early Monday in the area of the mine, causing speculation that a minor earthquake had caused the cave-in.
Scientists later realized the mine collapse had caused the disturbance, reported to authorities around 4 a.m. But by late afternoon, they said a natural earthquake could not be ruled out and more information was needed to conclusively determine what happened. Murray said the earthquake's epicenter was a mile from the trapped miners.
"The whole problem has been caused by an earthquake," he angrily insisted. Murray believed the miners have plenty of air because oxygen naturally leaks into the mine. The mine also is stocked with drinking water.
The Crandall Canyon mine performs "retreat mining," in which pillars of coal used to support the mine are eventually yanked to grab more coal. "It's dangerous work and been that way for 30 years," Leonard Reid, a safety inspector who works for the mine.
The president of UtahAmerican Energy, a company affiliated with the mine, likened it to a checkerboard - clearing the red boxes after mining the black. "It's something that the government approves and signs off on. ... It happens throughout the life of a mine," Bruce Hill said.
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 were what the government considered "significant and substantial," meaning they are likely to cause injury.
In 2007, inspectors have issued 32 citations against the mine, 14 of them considered significant. Last month, inspectors cited the mine for violating a rule requiring that at least two separate passageways be designated for escape in an emergency. It was the third time in less than two years that the mine had been cited for the same problem, according to MSHA records.
In 2005, MSHA ordered the mine owners to pay $963 for not having escapeways and the 2006 fine for the same problem was just $60.
Overall, the federal government has ordered the mine owner to pay nearly $152,000 in penalties for its 325 violations with many citations having no fines calculated yet.
Since January, the mine owner has paid $130,678 in fines, according to MSHA records.
Asked about safety, Murray told reporters: "I believe we run a very safe coal mine. We've had an excellent record."
A former head of MSHA, Davitt McAteer, said the 325 violations "would be in the medium range." "It's not perfect but it's certainly not bad," said J. Davitt McAteer, vice president of Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.
In Washington, the head of MSHA, Richard Stickler, said he would be at the site Tuesday. He believes the seismic activity recorded by the University of Utah was related to the mine. "We're going to have to do further investigation to be absolutely sure," Stickler told The Associated Press. "It's highly likely the seismic activity is the result of the failure of the coal pillars in the mine."
Gov. Jon Huntsman broke away from a wildfire forum in Boise, Idaho, to return to Utah.
Utah ranked 12th in coal production in 2006. It had 13 underground coal mines in 2005, the most recent statistics available, according to the Utah Geological Survey.
Emery County, the state's No. 2 coal-producer, also was the site of a fire that killed 27 people in the Wilburg mine in December 1984.
--- Associated Press writers Brock Vergakis in Salt Lake City and Seth Borenstein in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press science writer Seth Borenstein in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
