Utah Mine Collapses After Quake, 6 Trapped

[RitcheyRch]

Didnt think they had earthquakes in Utah.
http://cbs2.com/topstories/topstories_story_218114339.html
Six miners were trapped by a cave-in Monday at a coal mine five miles from the epicenter of a minor earthquake, authorities said.
The Genwal mine reported a "cave-in" at 3:50 a.m. MDT, an hour after the magnitude 4.0 earthquake, the Emery County sheriff's office said. "Rescue workers are on scene trying to locate six miners that are unaccounted for," the sheriff's office.
There has been no contact with them, said Dirk Fillpot, a spokesman at the Mine Safety and Health Administration in Washington.
The miners were believed to be 1,500 feet below the surface, about four miles from the mine entrance, Fillpot said.
Rescuers were within 2,500 feet of their presumed location, he said. He had no details on the difficulty of the search.
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, made a statement regarding the collapse at the Genwal Mine, reports CBS station KUTV.
"I offer my support to the families of the six missing miners and my thanks to those who are engaged in the current rescue operations. We are keeping in close contact with local officials in both Emery and Carbon Counties and the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration and hope to know more as the day goes on," Sen. Bennett said.
Walter Arabasz, the head of the University of Utah's Seismograph Stations, said there was a clear link between the quake and the mine collapse, based on wavelengths.
A command center was being set up in Huntington, about 15 miles from the mine, said Teresa Behunin, an accountant with Utah American Energy, which owns the mine. She had no other details.
Rocky Mountain Power, a utility with a power plant in the area, sent a rescue team and heavy equipment to the mine, about 140 miles south of Salt Lake City, spokesman Dave Eskelsen said.
The sheriff's office had said earlier there were no reports of damage or injuries blamed on the quake, centered under the Huntington Canyon area.
"We aren't panicked yet," Linda Jewkes, president of the Emery County Chamber of Commerce, said after hearing the news. "We're very, very concerned and very cautious when it comes to the mines."
Utah ranked 12th in coal production in 2006. It had 13 underground coal mines in 2005, the most recent statistics available, according to the Utah Geological Survey.
Emery County, the state's No. 2 coal-producer, also was the site of a fire that killed 27 people in the Wilburg mine in December 1984.

[PaPaG]

wow just reported on the news that the mine cave in could be the cause of the sizmic activity recording not an earthquake. 4 miles into the mine, wow you couldn't get me 1000 feet into a cole mine...Hope they ALL end up OK...

[ratso]

The outcome to this can't be too promising...:(

[Mardonzi]

Prayers and fingers crossed for those families..
I had an Uncle that was killed in the Wilburg fire they mentioned...

[Baja Big Dog]

No earthquake...the cave in caused the seismic numbers..
Sounds like the missing might be OK for a few days.

[RitcheyRch]

I didnt know that. Hopefully they get rescued.
You didn't think they had earthquakes in Utah?
Shit the whole Salt Lake Valley/Wasatch front sits on a major fault line :squiggle:
Prayers to those affected by this disaster

[Run_em_Hard]

They are still debating to if the earthquake caused the collapse or if the collapse caused the earthquake.
Also they are now digging up all the dirt that they can find on this mining company. Bad news

[RitcheyRch]

Sure hope they are able to get to those miners.

[RitcheyRch]

Not good news for those trapped and their families.
http://cbs2.com/topstories/topstories_story_220082544.html
Dangerous conditions that forced rescuers to halt attempts to reach six trapped miners will prevent crews from reaching the men for at least a week, a mining executive said.
Seismic activity "wiped out" all progress rescuers had made in clearing rubble that has trapped the miners since Monday, said mining company executive Robert E. Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., owner of the Crandall Canyon mine.
"We are back to square one underground," he said, adding that the rescue operation would resume no earlier than Wednesday afternoon.
Though rescue crews withdrew from inside the mine, drilling continued on the surface Tuesday.
Two holes were being bored vertically in an attempt to get air and food to the miners and to communicate with them, said Richard Stickler, head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The holes are small - one is 2 1/2 inches in diameter and the other less than 9 inches - but Murray said they should bring information about the status of the miners in the next few days. If the miners are alive, he said, they could survive on available air "for perhaps weeks."
The government's chief mine inspector was more cautious.
"We're hoping there's air down there. We have no way of knowing that," said MSHA's Al Davis.
The six miners were believed to be 1,500 feet underground when the mine collapsed. It is located in a remote winding canyon 140 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Despite the frustrated rescue effort, residents of the mining region tried to remain optimistic.
About 35 people, including several miners, assembled Tuesday evening at a Spanish-language Mass in a humble church outside Huntington.
"We come together to pray for our brothers, who are trapped. We ask God to send his sprit upon them," said the Rev. Donald Hope, who oversees the Mission San Rafael Catholic Church.
Meanwhile, a dispute flared over what factors might have been involved in the collapse.
Murray lashed out at news media for suggesting his men were conducting "retreat mining," in which miners pull down the last standing pillars of coal and let the roof fall in.
"This was caused by an earthquake, not something that Murray Energy ... did or our employees did or our management did," he said. "It was a natural disaster. An earthquake. And I'm going to prove it to you."
Government seismologists say the seismic event recorded by instruments around the time of the collapse appeared to be the cave-in itself, not an earthquake.
Murray insists the damage in the mine is totally unrelated to retreat mining.
"The pillars were not being removed here at the time of the accident. There are eight solid pillars around where the men are right now," he said.
But Amy Louviere, a spokeswoman for the MSHA in Washington, D.C., said the mine was conducting retreat mining. She also said that exactly what the miners were doing, and whether that led to the collapse, can be answered only by a full investigation.
Retreat mining has been blamed for 13 deaths since 2000.
The Crandall Canyon mine has been cited for safety violations more than 300 times since 2004, according to a CBS News report. This year, the mine received 32 citations, a dozen of them serious, including one last month for not having the required emergency escape routes.
That record, however, is slightly better than the industry average.
The government requires mining companies to submit a roof control plan before beginning the process. The plan details how and when pillars will be cut.
Murray Energy had submitted such a plan and received approval in 2006, Louviere said.
"As long as they abide by that plan, it can be a very safe form of mining," she said. "What we've found with recent fatalities is that the operator was found to not be following the roof control plan."
Early Monday, seismograph stations recorded a magnitude-3.9 event, and authorities briefly thought the shaking was an earthquake. But the University of Utah Seismograph Stations and the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver said it appeared the tremor was the mine collapse.
Mine collapses have a seismic signature distinct from earthquakes because they tend to occur at shallower depths and at different frequencies.
The first motions of the Utah disturbance indicated a downward movement consistent with a collapse, scientists said. If it had been an earthquake, it would have produced up and down motions on the seismograms, they said.
Murray Energy asserted that the ground shook in a spot 3,500 feet deeper than where the miners were. The company also claimed the shaking lasted four minutes.
The National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado said seismic events have been recorded since the collapse.
"Even though it's not a natural earthquake, it could still generate aftershocks, which is exactly what we're seeing in this particular situation," said Rafael Abreu, an NEIC geologist.

[RitcheyRch]

Not good news for those trapped and their families.
http://cbs2.com/topstories/topstories_story_220082544.html
Dangerous conditions that forced rescuers to halt attempts to reach six trapped miners will prevent crews from reaching the men for at least a week, a mining executive said.
Seismic activity "wiped out" all progress rescuers had made in clearing rubble that has trapped the miners since Monday, said mining company executive Robert E. Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., owner of the Crandall Canyon mine.
"We are back to square one underground," he said, adding that the rescue operation would resume no earlier than Wednesday afternoon.
Though rescue crews withdrew from inside the mine, drilling continued on the surface Tuesday.
Two holes were being bored vertically in an attempt to get air and food to the miners and to communicate with them, said Richard Stickler, head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The holes are small - one is 2 1/2 inches in diameter and the other less than 9 inches - but Murray said they should bring information about the status of the miners in the next few days. If the miners are alive, he said, they could survive on available air "for perhaps weeks."
The government's chief mine inspector was more cautious.
"We're hoping there's air down there. We have no way of knowing that," said MSHA's Al Davis.
The six miners were believed to be 1,500 feet underground when the mine collapsed. It is located in a remote winding canyon 140 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Despite the frustrated rescue effort, residents of the mining region tried to remain optimistic.
About 35 people, including several miners, assembled Tuesday evening at a Spanish-language Mass in a humble church outside Huntington.
"We come together to pray for our brothers, who are trapped. We ask God to send his sprit upon them," said the Rev. Donald Hope, who oversees the Mission San Rafael Catholic Church.
Meanwhile, a dispute flared over what factors might have been involved in the collapse.
Murray lashed out at news media for suggesting his men were conducting "retreat mining," in which miners pull down the last standing pillars of coal and let the roof fall in.
"This was caused by an earthquake, not something that Murray Energy ... did or our employees did or our management did," he said. "It was a natural disaster. An earthquake. And I'm going to prove it to you."
Government seismologists say the seismic event recorded by instruments around the time of the collapse appeared to be the cave-in itself, not an earthquake.
Murray insists the damage in the mine is totally unrelated to retreat mining.
"The pillars were not being removed here at the time of the accident. There are eight solid pillars around where the men are right now," he said.
But Amy Louviere, a spokeswoman for the MSHA in Washington, D.C., said the mine was conducting retreat mining. She also said that exactly what the miners were doing, and whether that led to the collapse, can be answered only by a full investigation.
Retreat mining has been blamed for 13 deaths since 2000.
The Crandall Canyon mine has been cited for safety violations more than 300 times since 2004, according to a CBS News report. This year, the mine received 32 citations, a dozen of them serious, including one last month for not having the required emergency escape routes.
That record, however, is slightly better than the industry average.
The government requires mining companies to submit a roof control plan before beginning the process. The plan details how and when pillars will be cut.
Murray Energy had submitted such a plan and received approval in 2006, Louviere said.
"As long as they abide by that plan, it can be a very safe form of mining," she said. "What we've found with recent fatalities is that the operator was found to not be following the roof control plan."
Early Monday, seismograph stations recorded a magnitude-3.9 event, and authorities briefly thought the shaking was an earthquake. But the University of Utah Seismograph Stations and the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver said it appeared the tremor was the mine collapse.
Mine collapses have a seismic signature distinct from earthquakes because they tend to occur at shallower depths and at different frequencies.
The first motions of the Utah disturbance indicated a downward movement consistent with a collapse, scientists said. If it had been an earthquake, it would have produced up and down motions on the seismograms, they said.
Murray Energy asserted that the ground shook in a spot 3,500 feet deeper than where the miners were. The company also claimed the shaking lasted four minutes.
The National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado said seismic events have been recorded since the collapse.
"Even though it's not a natural earthquake, it could still generate aftershocks, which is exactly what we're seeing in this particular situation," said Rafael Abreu, an NEIC geologist.

[Wet Dream]

Didnt think they had earthquakes in Utah.
Yeah, those little things called The Rocky Mountains located on the Continental Divide just showed up one day out of the blue. ;) Earthquakes aren't a common threat in the that area as of recent milleniums, including Idaho, Montana and Colorado, but they do still happen, though not large enough to make news.
The one thing that gets me is the pompus attitude and denial of the mine owner. I undertand that he has great concern about his life work, but yesterdays press conference was more about coal and his mine, then finally onto the trapped miners. He placed blame everywhere, including the media, and not one remote possibility that it may have been his operation. I really don't like this guy at all.

[RitcheyRch]

Didnt say I was smart when came to geography. :D
Agree, the owner seemed to worry more about his mine. Sure hope they are able to save those miners.
Yeah, those little things called The Rocky Mountains located on the Continental Divide just showed up one day out of the blue. ;) Earthquakes aren't a common threat in the that area as of recent milleniums, including Idaho, Montana and Colorado, but they do still happen, though not large enough to make news.
The one thing that gets me is the pompus attitude and denial of the mine owner. I undertand that he has great concern about his life work, but yesterdays press conference was more about coal and his mine, then finally onto the trapped miners. He placed blame everywhere, including the media, and not one remote possibility that it may have been his operation. I really don't like this guy at all.

[Wet Dream]

Didnt say I was smart when came to geography. :D
Agree, the owner seemed to worry more about his mine. Sure hope they are able to save those miners.
There is supposed to be another press conference like this, but only to give some real info, and not from him. The feds want to give their story on this. They will refute the earthquake theory. This guy is not media gold.

[Baja Big Dog]

Seems to be a lot of tap dancing.....:confused:

[MBlaster]

The National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado said seismic events have been recorded since the collapse.
"Even though it's not a natural earthquake, it could still generate aftershocks, which is exactly what we're seeing in this particular situation," said Rafael Abreu, an NEIC geologist.
Someone needs to 'splain this to us non geologist folk.:confused:

[RitcheyRch]

Makes no sense to me either.
Someone needs to 'splain this to us non geologist folk.:confused:

[20" gun's]

My heart goes out to the families and workers. Thats a hard job with very little pay.