Attempting to put the citations into perspective, he said that other coal mines with disasters in recent years had in the neighborhood of 180 to 210 citations, compared with the 33 this year for Crandall Canyon Mine. In addition, he said, half of the violations at the other mines were serious, while fewer than half were in that category in the Utah mine.

Licht said the number of citations at the Crandall Canyon Mine was not unusually high. "This is maybe par for the course," he said.

Concerning the rubble that rescuers have been trying to remove, he said that seems to indicate a cave-in happened.

"When you have cave-ins, they usually are the result of some kind of explosion or some kind of fire," he said. If there was no earthquake or explosion, Licht added, "it's hard to understand why the buttressing system should give way."

The mine's permit area covers 5,000 acres, with a combination of private land and federal and state leases, according to the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining. The mine is entirely within the Manti-La Sal National Forest, and its surface operations take place on 10 acres.

Mining began there in 1939 and continued until September 1955, when it stopped. Production resumed in 1983 by Genwal Coal Co., with production from 100,000 tons to 230,000 tons a year, the state division noted. In 1991, mining began on state land within the mine.

And in 1997, a mining machine was purchased that was intended to increase production from 2.5 million tons to 3.5 million tons yearly.

Genwal Resources made $45 million in annual sales, according to the business-tracking Web site Hoovers.com. Genwal Resource's parent company, UtahAmerican Energy Inc., is owned by Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., which is the fourth or fifth largest mining company in America, said Murray Energy President Robert E. Murray. The Genwal complex is the smallest operation, with about 71 employees.

Workers at the Crandall Canyon Mine are not unionized.

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Contributing: Ben Winslow

E-mail: bau@desnews.com