Utah mine crisis: Day 7 — Waiting for answers, 'Heartbreaking' silence

HUNTINGTON, Emery County — There is still no answer to the most important, the most desperate question:

What happened to Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Arturo "Manuel" Sanchez?

Attempts to make contact through an 8 5/8-inch hole drilled through a mountainside have been met only with silence.

"It's heartbreaking," said Mike Glasson, a mine engineer who banged on the drill with a hammer three times, the code for miners that someone is trying to reach them.

About 3 a.m. Saturday, rescue crews drilled through a mountain to reach the six miners trapped nearly 1,900 feet underground in a collapsed part of the Crandall Canyon Mine. It was another frustrating day of slow progress and few results.

"It's been a very slow and difficult process," said Richard Stickler, the assistant U.S. Labor Secretary over the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Rescuers say they are not giving up. By 8:15 a.m. Saturday, crews began dropping a camera into the hole, hoping it would reveal more about what happened to the men.

The good news was that crews found 5 1/2 feet of head room inside the cavern and a sizable amount of drinkable water. Yet there was still no sign of whether the six men are alive, dead or even there.

The camera was also not working well. Only the vertical part of it was operating. Rescuers were not able to get a good horizontal look at the mine shaft. When the camera is working fully, it should be able to see 100 feet into the mine and will have illumination. The Department of Defense has flown in additional sensory equipment, MSHA officials said.

A pair of rescue capsules, which can raise or lower a person out of a mine, have been brought to the site. However, should the cages need to be used, mine officials said they would have to drill a hole big enough to accommodate them. That could take 17-20 days.

Late Saturday, federal mine safety authorities said the miners are believed to be in an area measuring roughly 475 feet by 260 feet. It extends from the beginning of the 8 5/8-inch hole, drilled by rescuers, to the working face of the mine.

'Same old things'

The video shot by the camera was flown by a Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter to Huntington Junior High School, where family members of the trapped miners have been anxiously waiting for any developments. They were shown the video.