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.

Mine officials said that a fifth hole, if used as a tunnel, would have to extend about 2,000 feet into the earth and would also be susceptible to ongoing "bumps." The families, however, see such a tunnel as the only plausible option for rescuing the men.

"The families met with mine officials [Monday] and it was discussed how soon a fifth hole could be completed. The families also asked about a rescue capsule and were dismayed that the issue was not addressed earlier. … They should have drilled a large hole near where the miners were thought to be at the beginning," Olsen said.

Larry Grayson, professor of energy and mineral engineering at Penn State University, said despite the risk of bumps and cave-ins, rescuers were right in trying to tunnel toward the trapped miners. That decision ultimately led to the three rescuers' deaths last week.

"A 1.6 Magnitude [bump] is probably more than they anticipated," he said. "In retrospect it is easy to say the risk was too high, but the only thing on their minds was getting those six miners out. It was a calculated risk."

Bob Ferriter, a professor of mine safety at the Colorado School of Mines, agreed that rescuers had acted appropriately in the first stages of the rescue.

"It is always risky where there is a possibility people might still be alive," he said. "You have to take the risk. The potential for saving someone makes it worth the risk of going into the mine."

"But it's a judgment call as to when you pull out rescuers if it gets too dangerous. … There's no magic formula."

Adding to the families' frustrations is a lack of understanding about who is ultimately making decisions about the rescue effort: Murray or the U.S. mine agency.

"It is unclear who behind the scenes is making decisions and it hasn't been discussed with the families," Olsen said. "They want the federal government to do more to aid the effort."

But government representatives say it is they who are overseeing the efforts at the mine.

"MSHA [Mine Safety Health Administration] oversees the rescue operation. We approve the plan and make amendments and give [the] green light," said Amy Louviere, an administration spokeswoman.

Louviere also said the government would conduct an investigation to determine what had caused the initial collapse Aug. 6 and what if anything could have been done differently to rescue the miners.

"We'll launch a full investigation once the miners are recovered," she told ABCNEWS.com. "Hopefully we'll be able to put together the pieces of what happened and why."

Outside experts are as pessimistic about finding the miners alive as the mine's owner. There is a time, they said, when rescuers have to accept that continued efforts would only put more people at risk.

"Absolutely there is a time when rescuers have to say the risks are too great. … There is a remote possibility that anyone is alive back there," Ferriter said.

"To go back in there with the seismic activity would be putting rescuers at undo risk. They need to give the mountain time to adjust."