Officials on Monday indefinitely suspended efforts to save six coal miners as a group of mining experts concluded that the area where the men were trapped was structurally unstable and would probably collapse again.
Robert Murray, chief executive of Murray Energy Corp, co-owner of the mine, said hopes of finding anyone alive were dim, a message he said he had relayed to relatives of the miners.
The miners were trapped on Aug. 6 in the Crandall Canyon Mine.
"I don't know whether the miners will be found," Murray said. "But I'm not optimistic."
A day earlier, relatives of the miners lashed out at officials and the mine's owners, faulting their rescue efforts as insufficient and asserting that that they were simply waiting for the six buried men to die.
A panel of eight mining experts from around the US met on Sunday and Monday, poring over records of seismic activity before concluding that further rescue activities would be unsafe.
Richard Stickler, a federal mining official who announced the panel's findings, said that if any of the miners were discovered alive, a hole would be dug to send a rescuer down to lift out survivors.
"The significant risk is unacceptable to send a rescuer miner underground for the purpose of exploration," said Stickler, an assistant secretary of labor and director of the US Mine Safety and Health Administration.
On Sunday, family members issued a statement saying Murray had promised to remove the miners dead or alive
Rescuers have drilled four holes into the Utah mine. A fifth hole, started on Sunday, had reached a depth of 259m by late afternoon on Monday, Stickler said, and was expected to reach its final depth of 621m by 5pm yesterday.
But earlier air samples found oxygen levels too low to support human life. Fresh air was being pumped into the holes, Stickler said, though a camera and sensors lowered last week detected no sign of life.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS