Reader comments
Third, maybe fourth, hole to be drilled in mine rescue

I guess hope is a good thing but the reality of ever finding the miners alive must be faced as unpleasant as that is. I know that after 7 days the chances of finding the miners alive is fading very fast, as does everyone else. I am sad at their passing but life is eternal and they now go on to a much better place, may God bless and strenghten the family and friends of the lost miners we will never forget them.

Hope is a good thing, no doubt. To be absolutely honest with everyone, I have to keep hope that they are still alive, and that they will be rescued. The one miner has had over 30 years experience mining and he might have been able to help the others to an area where they were going to be safe. I know this can be a real stretch in my way of thinking, but we can only hope. May God bless the families and friends of the miners and may they be at peace no matter what the outcome.

To the community of Huntington and the family and friends of the miners still trapped in the Crandall Canyon Mine...Thank you for your example of love, of fellowship and of courage. Our thoughts, our love and our prayers are with you and your loved ones. Thank you for representing hope in the face of despair and reflecting to the world that when you are one with another, you are one with Christ. All is well and they live.

Along with the wholehearteded efforts of mine personnel and others, information technology experts might be able to provide ways to signal the miners who may have moved far in their attempts to escape tremors and water. Safety must have been their first goal in moving through the mine. So how to reach them? How about two dozen ferrets equiped with harnesses, long burning lights, and written directions to the holes that have been drilled.

It seems the side walls buckled inward. There was no explosion or poison gas. But why no hammering sounds for help? Maybe they were trapped in their rail car trying to get out. Keep clearing the main shaft. Need to learn from this for future safety.

This is ridiculous! The owner acts like he has done everything possible....how PATHETIC! They should have drilled 10 - 15 holes in every cavity they COULD have been in....not ASSUMING they are in one specific one. EVERY POSSIBLE PLACE SHOULD HAVE BEEN SEARCHED THE FIRST DAY! They are moving like they lived in the 14th century!
BUT...when you have over 300 citations you haven't fixed.....as that mine does....which shows the owners do NOT care about safety..then what do we expect....that they are doing ALL they can...ha!!! No...as USUAL..MONEY is more important than lives...why am I not surprised?? Typical American ways of doing business...nothing happens until there is Disaster!! WAKE UP!!

Our hearts go to the miners' families. I believe the mine owner is doing everything HUMANLY possible. It is not possible to move mountains, but I am sure they are doing all they can.

My, my... that will be quite a celebration when the miners will be found alive. God bless you all. Keep up the faith. NEVER give up.

I agree with "a mad reader" if there really was so many diferent places the miners could be they should have started drilling dozens of holes from the very beginning. They shouldn't wait to see if one or two holes work before another. drill them all at the first and we could have seen the entire tunnel by now

Its a big Mine on a big mountain so if you had 50 drilling rigs on it ,it still would be like a needle in a haystack senerio,there best bet on a deep mine like that one is to reach them thru the main entrance which has proven to be very unstable ,they may be able to tunnel around the rock slides and blockage in the shaft but that also takes time ,if I was one of those miners i would have been trying to get out ,so hopefully thats not the case ,if so they most likely will be found in the debris field ,if they knew it was collapseing and decided to run the other way to the back of the mine they may be holed up and have been surviveing on the fresh water in the mine and hopefully fresh air ,if the air quality is low and they did not have there emergency oxegen there in trouble for sure,I dont give up hope untill they walk out of that mine like many others have in the past accidents after many days trapped or as gruesome as this may sound they remove the bodys,I like to keep posiative and feel they will walk out as the ceiling is still good ,there seems to be air and water and no methane gas ,if your going to survive a mine cave in this sounds like pretty good circumstances unless you were crushed trying to excape out of the mine.

Of course mining is a risky operation period. It's just sad that this has occurred. It's even sadder to realize that the owners don't care to address safety issues and only appear to be sympathetic in the face of tragedy. Everytime you hear a reporter ask Mr. Murray about comments from people who actually worked for his company, he is quick to say that these are just rumors and he will not address them. I'll bet he will be glad to get all the extra coal out of the mine that is blocking the entrance because that is still more $$$.
Just my perspective.....

There are many scenerios that could have happened in the mine that would leave the miners alive. Many individuals have survived long periods of time with nothing more then oxygen and water. It would be great to have many rigs drilling into suspected cavities, but men and equipment for this type of work are not plentiful; and inexperience workers could and would make the situation even more precarious then it is. The depth of this mine and the type of mining that is done there is vastly different then recent mining accidents. The brotherhood of miners and the deep seated knowledge that days and nights can pass and the miners not trapped will not stop until they are certain that the trapped miners, dead or alive, are brought back to loved ones; can, has, and will always give those trapped a hope and a will to survive. My thoughts are with all those involved and I share in the hope that this time will be another rescue that the surviving miners can speak of for the rest of their days.