Rescuers try to break through to missing miners
Rescuers in Pennsylvania were today trying to break through to nine coal miners trapped 240ft underground in a dark shaft which is rapidly filling up with millions of gallons of cold water.
Encouraged by a tapping sound coming up from the depths, the rescuers have started drilling an escape hole which they hope can be used to pull the men to safety.
Drilling began last night at the mine, 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, but the crews did not expect to reach the trapped men until later today.
Rescuers have been pumping air into the tiny chamber through a much smaller hole, hoping it will buy them enough time to save the miners who have been trapped in a 4ft-high shaft since Wednesday night.
"We still believe there are miners alive. We obviously don’t know how many," said David Hess, Pennsylvania secretary of environmental protection.
"This is a very tricky and dangerous situation, and I don’t want to raise expectations."
The miners were trapped after apparently breaching the wall of a flooded and abandoned mine next to them, releasing more than 50 million gallons of water into the shaft where they were working.
The workers believed the old mine was still some 300ft away, but their maps were wrong, officials said.
Rescue crews lost contact with the miners soon after the accident but heard tapping early yesterday.
Joseph Sbaffoni of the state Bureau of Deep Mine Safety said the miners apparently dashed into an air pocket about 200ft from where the wall of the abandoned mine was breached, water rushing past them as they did.
Another crew of miners - warned by radio by the men who were trapped - managed to wade to safety in water up to their necks.
Sbaffoni said the first contact with the trapped survivors came at about 3am. "We tapped and we heard tapping back," he said.
Later, with rescue machinery making too much noise for workers to hear if the miners were still tapping on the air line, officials placed seismic devices to pick up any underground noises. The signals were still coming late yesterday.
Ted Lepley, who works for Black Wolf Coal, the mine’s operators, was waiting for word near the entrance.
"Those are my brothers down there," Lepley said. "God help them."
