Miners Still Trapped, but Is Anyone to Blame?

Aug. 21, 2007 — -- While the families of the six miners still trapped in Utah's Crandall Canyon mine said Monday they wanted another large hole bored to help rescue workers find their loved ones, experts cautioned against continued drilling and raised questions about the safety of previous efforts that resulted in the deaths of three emergency workers Thursday.

"The families are dismayed with the current efforts," said Sonny Olsen, a lawyer and spokesman for the trapped miners' families, to ABCNEWS.com. "They are displeased and believe [mine co-owner Bob] Murray is going to leave them entombed and stop the rescue efforts."

The families, who despite the odds, continue to hope the miners might be found alive two weeks after the initial collapse, have called on Murray and the federal government for more aggressive rescue attempts.

Representatives of the mine and the Mine Safety Health Administration, as well as outside experts, however, insist that the miners are most likely dead and that, due to the unsettled nature of the mine, continued efforts could result in more deaths.

"I don't know whether the miners will be found, but I'm not optimistic they will be found alive," Murray said at a news conference Monday night.

The experts contacted by ABCNEWS.com for comment about the rescue were reluctant to criticize the effort in its early stages. As long as the rescuers might have been alive after the initial collapse, they said, aggressive but dangerous tactics were understandable.

Two weeks later, however, with measured oxygen levels not sufficient to support human life and little probability of the miners being found alive, the safety of the rescuers must be the top priority.

Three of the previous four holes dug near where the miners were believed to be trapped were large enough only to test the air quality in the mine, lower listening and video equipment and potentially deliver supplies if the miners were found. A fourth hole, used as a rescue tunnel, collapsed with workers inside it last week when a seismic "bump" or release of excess pressure within the mine caused the roof to cave in.