When Mines Become Graves

By Michael Rubinkam

HUNTINGTON, Utah — Sometimes, after all other possibilities are lost, mines become graves.

The bodies of 12 miners have been buried in the Knox Mine in Pennsylvania for almost 50 years. Of the 78 killed in a Farmington, W.Va., mine in 1968, 19 remain entombed. After a 1976 accident that killed 26 men, the Scotia Mine in Kentucky was sealed.

Could that be the fate of six miners trapped since Aug. 6 in the Crandall Canyon Mine, after three people died Thursday trying to save them? That question was on people’s minds here Friday, but those familiar with mining said that the colleagues of the missing men will do everything in their power to get them out, however long it takes.

“It’s a brotherhood. If they were in there, they would want somebody to come back and recover them,” said Bob Ferriter, a former MSHA engineer who teaches safety at the Colorado School of Mines. Leaving the six men in the coal mine “would be the last option,” he said.

Underground rescue efforts were suspended indefinitely after Thursday’s fatal mine collapse, and officials were taking a close look at whether they could resume in a mountain that appears to be slowly crumbling.

Crews on Friday were still drilling a fourth hole into the mountain to look for any sign of the missing men.

“Is there any possible way we can continue this underground operation and provide safety for the rescue workers? At this point we don’t have an answer,” said Richard Stickler, head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Three rescue workers were killed and six injured in the latest collapse.

Rescuers working beneath 2,000 feet of sandstone had dug more than 800 feet over 10 days, with about 1,200 feet left to go, when they were hit with the huge blast. Rock flew from the reinforced walls with a force Stickler said could break a 40-ton mining machine in half.

The cave-in at 6:39 p.m. was believed to be caused by a “mountain bump,” shifting layers of earth. The force from the bump registered a magnitude 1.6 at the University of Utah seismograph stations in Salt Lake City.

“These events seem to be related to ongoing settling of the rock mass following the main event,” university spokesman Lee Siegel said. “I don’t think I’m going too far to say that this mountain is collapsing in slow motion.”

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman ordered flags lowered to half staff. “We went from a tragedy to a catastrophe,” he said.

Huntsman continued to call the effort a rescue operation, but he said the digging would not resume until workers’ safety could be guaranteed.

“Let us ensure that we have no more injuries. We have suffered enough as a state,” he said.

Mark Thompson, 52, a miner for 27 years, said the urge to keep digging will remain strong.

“I’m sure there would be a point but who’s going to make that call?” he said of stopping an underground search. “If they need help, they need help. Would you leave one of your co-workers?”

Huntington Mayor Hilary Gordon, whose son-in-law is a miner, said she wouldn’t know when to scratch a rescue.

“I thank God I don’t have to make that call. As a miner’s wife, I would want to keep going,” she said. “But if I was the wife of a rescue worker, I would say that’s really dangerous.”

Text of fax box follows:

A look at long-term survival in mine accidents

A look at mine accidents and at how long trapped miners survived until they were rescued, listed from the longest to the shortest span of time:

January 1983: Two coal miners rescued after 23 days in northeast China.

September 1982: Four South Korean coal miners rescued after 14 days.

May 2006: Two miners rescued after being trapped for 14 days following a collapse at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine in Tasmania, Australia.

November 2005: A coal miner in northern China rescued after 11 days.

May 1968: Six miners rescued after ten days, in Hominy Falls, WVa.; days earlier, 15 miners had been rescued after five days.

October 1958: 12 coal miners survive six days at Springhill, Nova Scotia.

July 2002: Nine coal miners rescued after surviving eight days in a mine in northwestern China.

July 1996: Three miners survived eight days trapped in a flooded mine in southern China, living off water that came up to their necks.

May 1972: Two miners rescued after eight days in northern Idaho.

Originally published by Associated Press.

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