As Utah mine rescue drags on, mood remains hopeful but subdued

HUNTINGTON — A week ago Crandall Canyon mine owner Bob Murray said it would be three days before rescuers could get to six miners who were trapped early Aug. 6 after a 3.9 magnitude seismic event accompanied a collapse inside the mine.

Then Murray changed it to at least a week before crews would be able to reach Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Arturo "Manuel" Sanchez, trapped nearly 1,900 feet underground in a chilly, constantly dark and probably small section of the mine.

It's now Day 8 and there is still no word of whether the six men are alive or dead.

Two holes dug into areas where they were thought to be in order to establish some sort of communication or visual confirmation of the miners' conditions also yielded nothing substantial. A third hole, the second to measure 8 5/8 inches, is being dug into yet another pocket of the mine where the men might have run for safety.

One week later workers, digging horizontally toward the miners, are still hundreds of feet away and several more days from reaching their colleagues. Families of the six men continue the excruciating wait.

Communities continue their support with candlelight vigils, signs and prayers. A benefit concert in Huntington to raise money for the affected families is planned for Wednesday evening, a time when rescuers presumably will know more about the miners' fate.

As of this morning, media still clog both sides of state Route 31 at the entrance to Crandall Canyon, waiting and hopeful to tell readers, the TV audience and radio listeners something positive, or at least something new.

Murray, at least for now, seems to have ended his tirades against media and sources at whom the mine owner also lashed out. Press conferences, which are down to about one a day from every two hours a week ago, are more subdued and are now led by officials from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Dozens and dozens of workers, along with truckload after truckload of equipment, still come and go out of Crandall Canyon, part of a massive human effort to answer that lingering question: dead or alive?

But hope in Emery County is not dead, kept alive in part by stories of survival.

One such story took place in West Virginia, in January 2006.

It was two days before anyone reached miners trapped after the Sago Mine explosion. Back then, families waited and were originally told 12 survived. Hopes were high, then dashed.

Those families soon found out the grim truth — that 12 had died.

But one Sago miner did manage to survive. His name is Randal McCloy Jr.

It's been reported that four miners escaped the Crandall Canyon Mine cave-in. Now, everyone waits for word of whether at least one, if not all six still buried under a mountain of coal, rock and dirt, can someday soon go home like Randal McCloy.

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E-mail: sspeckman@desnews.com