Washington - Rescuers will need at least three more days to
reach six miners trapped underground after a cave-in in a mine tunnel
in the western US state of Utah, the mine's owner said Tuesday.
All attempts to reach them so far have been unsuccessful and it is
still not known whether the six are dead or alive.
Robert Murray, whose company, Murray Energy Corp, owns the mine's
operator Utah American Energy Inc, said in a televised press
conference that the miners trapped in the collapsed tunnel early
Monday were located about 457 metres under ground.
Little is known about the six miners, except that three of them
are Mexican nationals.
Rescuers were 600 metres from the miners and if everything goes
right three days would be needed to break through to their location
and determine if they are alive, he said. Several additional days
would then be needed to free them.
'Progress has been too slow,' Murray said. 'The families are doing
fine, considering the circumstances.'
But he added that if the miners survived the initial collapse,
'there is plenty of air in there for them to survive for weeks and
there is water.'
Rescuers drilled from several directions throughout the night, but
were not able to make substantial progress as dangerous conditions,
including falling rock, forced teams to retreat.
'It will take three days if everything goes right to get to these
miners,' Murray said. 'At that time, we'll know whether they're alive
or dead.'
He stood by early reports that the collapse had been caused by a
small 4.0 earthquake and blasted scientists who insisted that the
seismic tremors captured by local sensors were indications of the
mine collapse.
He also lashed out at news reports that said mining methods may
have been at fault for the collapse.
'This is the first major accident we have had and this was caused
by an earthquake and not something that Murray Energy did,' he said.
'It was a natural disaster.'
But Harley Benz, of the National Earthquake Information Centre
disagreed.
'Our signals show that it was a mine collapse and was not
consistent with a naturally occurring earthquake,' he told
broadcaster CNN.
Southeastern Utah has a history of past mine disasters. In 2000,
two men died during an explosion at the Willow Creek mine; in 1984, a
fire in the Wilberg mine killed 27; a 1924 explosion took 172 lives
at the Castle Gate mine, and the Scofield mine disaster of 1900
claimed 200.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
Your Talkback on this Story