Utah Mine Search Suspended

'We've done all we can do,' expert says after camera fails

By Caroline Miller, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 1, 2007 3:48 AM CDT

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Utah Mine Search Suspended — Dave Canning, right, and Mike Glassom, left, two miners in charge of drilling bore holes into the Crandall Canyon Mine, listen during a news conference on the efforts to locate six miners trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine northwest of Huntington Utah, Sunday, Aug, 26, 2007. During the conference the... (Associated Press)

"We've exhausted the options that we know about." That's how mine experts put it to an attorney for the trapped Utah miners' families yesterday, CNN reports. A camera lowered through a borehole into the collapsed mine at the Candall Canyon site yesterday failed to produce useful information when it got stuck in the mud as it searched debris on the mine floor.

The camera also got stuck as it was raised after the unsuccessful attempt, and had to be abandoned about 50 feet from the surface. A regional director for the Mine Safety and Health Administration told representatives of the families, "We've done all we can do."
It was very difficult for the families, the lawyer told CNN. "There were tears." (More Crandall Canyon stories.)

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