HUNTINGTON, Utah -- Seismic activity has "totally shut down" efforts to reach six miners trapped below ground and has wiped out all the work done in the past day, a mine executive said Tuesday.
"We are back to square one underground," said Robert E. Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., owner of the Crandall Canyon mine.
Still, "we should know within 48 to 72 hours the status of those trapped miners," Murray said. Crews are drilling two holes into the mountain in an effort to communicate with the miners -- provided they are still alive.
Unstable conditions below ground have thwarted rescuers' efforts to break through to the miners, who have been trapped 1,500 feet down for nearly two days, Murray said.
Rescuers were able to get within 1,700 feet Monday but had advanced only 310 feet more since, Murray said earlier Tuesday. The seismic shocks caused cave-ins that blocked even that progress, he said.
Rescue teams will be ready to start over again this afternoon at the earliest, Murray said.
"There is absolutely no way that through our underground rescue effort we can reach the vicinity of the trapped miners for at least one week," he said.
The National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado said 10 seismic shocks have been recorded since the collapse, but only one since 3 a.m. Tuesday. That one struck at 3:42 p.m. with a magnitude of 1.7.
Murray has insisted the cave-in was caused by an earthquake. But government seismologists have said the pattern of ground-shaking picked up by their instruments around the time of the accident Monday appeared to have been caused not by an earthquake, but by the cave-in itself.
Murray lashed out at the news media for suggesting his men were conducting "retreat mining," a method in which miners pull down the last standing pillars of coal and let the roof fall in.
Amy Louviere, a spokeswoman for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration in Washington, said the men at the mine were, in fact, conducting retreat mining.
However, Louviere said that exactly what the miners were doing, and whether that led to the collapse, can be answered only after a full investigation.
More than a day and a half after the cave-in, rescuers were unable to say whether the men were alive and had not even heard any pounding from their hammers, as miners are trained to do when they get trapped.
The trapped miners were believed to be about 31/2 miles inside the mine, 140 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Two holes were being drilled vertically in an attempt to get air and food to the miners and communicate with them, Richard Stickler, head of the MSHA, said at a news conference.
If the men were not killed by the cave-in itself, Murray said, he believed there was enough air and water for them to survive for days or "for perhaps weeks." But the government's chief mine inspector in the West was not as confident.
"We're hoping there's air down there. We have no way of knowing that," said MSHA's Al Davis.
Before the work was stopped Tuesday, mine shafts were being reinforced with timber and steel beams, and ventilation systems were being repaired, Stickler said.
"We are back to square one underground," said Robert E. Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., owner of the Crandall Canyon mine.
Still, "we should know within 48 to 72 hours the status of those trapped miners," Murray said. Crews are drilling two holes into the mountain in an effort to communicate with the miners -- provided they are still alive.
Unstable conditions below ground have thwarted rescuers' efforts to break through to the miners, who have been trapped 1,500 feet down for nearly two days, Murray said.
Rescuers were able to get within 1,700 feet Monday but had advanced only 310 feet more since, Murray said earlier Tuesday. The seismic shocks caused cave-ins that blocked even that progress, he said.
Rescue teams will be ready to start over again this afternoon at the earliest, Murray said.
"There is absolutely no way that through our underground rescue effort we can reach the vicinity of the trapped miners for at least one week," he said.
The National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado said 10 seismic shocks have been recorded since the collapse, but only one since 3 a.m. Tuesday. That one struck at 3:42 p.m. with a magnitude of 1.7.
Murray has insisted the cave-in was caused by an earthquake. But government seismologists have said the pattern of ground-shaking picked up by their instruments around the time of the accident Monday appeared to have been caused not by an earthquake, but by the cave-in itself.
Murray lashed out at the news media for suggesting his men were conducting "retreat mining," a method in which miners pull down the last standing pillars of coal and let the roof fall in.
Amy Louviere, a spokeswoman for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration in Washington, said the men at the mine were, in fact, conducting retreat mining.
However, Louviere said that exactly what the miners were doing, and whether that led to the collapse, can be answered only after a full investigation.
More than a day and a half after the cave-in, rescuers were unable to say whether the men were alive and had not even heard any pounding from their hammers, as miners are trained to do when they get trapped.
The trapped miners were believed to be about 31/2 miles inside the mine, 140 miles south of Salt Lake City.
Two holes were being drilled vertically in an attempt to get air and food to the miners and communicate with them, Richard Stickler, head of the MSHA, said at a news conference.
If the men were not killed by the cave-in itself, Murray said, he believed there was enough air and water for them to survive for days or "for perhaps weeks." But the government's chief mine inspector in the West was not as confident.
"We're hoping there's air down there. We have no way of knowing that," said MSHA's Al Davis.
Before the work was stopped Tuesday, mine shafts were being reinforced with timber and steel beams, and ventilation systems were being repaired, Stickler said.
