Three days needed to reach six trapped miners, company says (Roundup)

Aug 7, 2007, 22:39 GMT

   Washington - Rescuers will need at least three more days to reach six miners trapped underground after a cave-in in a mine tunnel in the western US state of Utah, the mine's owner said Tuesday.

All attempts to reach them so far have been unsuccessful and it is still not known whether the six are dead or alive.

   Robert Murray, whose company, Murray Energy Corp, owns the mine's operator Utah American Energy Inc, said in a televised press conference that the miners trapped in the collapsed tunnel early Monday were located about 457 metres under ground.

Little is known about the six miners, except that three of them are Mexican nationals.

   Rescuers were 600 metres from the miners and if everything goes right three days would be needed to break through to their location and determine if they are alive, he said. Several additional days would then be needed to free them.

'Progress has been too slow,' Murray said. 'The families are doing fine, considering the circumstances.'

But he added that if the miners survived the initial collapse, 'there is plenty of air in there for them to survive for weeks and there is water.'

Rescuers drilled from several directions throughout the night, but were not able to make substantial progress as dangerous conditions, including falling rock, forced teams to retreat.

'It will take three days if everything goes right to get to these miners,' Murray said. 'At that time, we'll know whether they're alive or dead.'

   He stood by early reports that the collapse had been caused by a small 4.0 earthquake and blasted scientists who insisted that the seismic tremors captured by local sensors were indications of the mine collapse.

He also lashed out at news reports that said mining methods may have been at fault for the collapse.

'This is the first major accident we have had and this was caused by an earthquake and not something that Murray Energy did,' he said. 'It was a natural disaster.'

But Harley Benz, of the National Earthquake Information Centre disagreed.

'Our signals show that it was a mine collapse and was not consistent with a naturally occurring earthquake,' he told broadcaster CNN.

   Southeastern Utah has a history of past mine disasters. In 2000, two men died during an explosion at the Willow Creek mine; in 1984, a fire in the Wilberg mine killed 27; a 1924 explosion took 172 lives at the Castle Gate mine, and the Scofield mine disaster of 1900 claimed 200.