Search not over for Utah miners

huntington, utah -- Although three weeks of drilling and digging have revealed no signs of life from six men trapped inside a collapsed coal mine, officials said Sunday that the search was continuing.

Federal and mine company officials said that a seventh borehole was being punched into the Crandall Canyon Mine and that a robotic camera was being lowered into a hole drilled during previous efforts to find the men.

The camera is similar to one used to search the wreckage of the World Trade Center after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It can take images in the darkened cavern from about 50 feet away with the help of a 200-watt light; it can travel 1,000 feet from the end of the test hole; and it has some ability to move around the rubble, officials said.

“We’re very excited about it. The families are thrilled to hear this,” said Colin King, a lawyer for the miners’ families.

Images from the camera were expected today.

Robin Murphy, director of the Institute for Safety Security Rescue Technology at the University of South Florida, said the camera’s ability to obtain images in the mine was a longshot. She said that it was not clear whether the camera would fit all the way down the hole and into the mine, and that debris in the shaft could obscure images.

“There’s mud, there’s rocks, there’s things that make it unfavorable,” Murphy said.

The Crandall Canyon miners were last heard from about 3 a.m. Aug. 6, just before a thunderous shudder inside the mountain cracked the ribs of the mine and filled passageways with debris, cutting off an exit route. It is unknown whether they survived the cave-in.

Digging through the rubble-filled mine shaft was halted after a second collapse killed three rescuers and injured six others Aug. 16.

Sunday’s announcement came a day after crews penetrated the mine with a sixth borehole, finding a debris-filled area too small for the men to survive in, officials said.

“There could be no sign of life in such a condition,” mine co-owner Robert E. Murray said Sunday.

Murray said the seventh hole would be drilled into the “kitchen” area of the mine, the area to which miners are trained to flee in a collapse. “We haven’t given up hope,” he said.

Murray had previously said the sixth borehole, drilled more than 1,700 feet deep, would be the last before sealing the mine.

The seventh hole was started Sunday, and officials did not estimate when it might be completed. Previous holes have taken about two days. Murphy said the robotic camera would be lowered into the third or fourth borehole, neither of which had given any sign of the miners.