Seismic Activity Has Interrupted Utah Mine Rescue Effort, Executive Says

HUNTINGTON, Utah (AP) _ 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.

Tuesday, August 7th 2007, 7:23 am

By: News On 6

HUNTINGTON, Utah (AP) _ 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. Rescue crews are drilling two holes into the mountain in an effort to communicate with the miners _ provided they are still alive.

Meanwhile, unstable conditions below ground have thwarted rescuers' efforts to break through to the miners, who have been trapped 1,500 feet below the surface for nearly two days, Murray said.

It will take a week to reach them that way, Murray said.

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.