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CNN Live Today

Frantic Race to Save Lives of Nine Trapped Miners

Aired July 25, 2002 - 13:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to the frantic race to save the lives of nine trapped miners, rescue workers are trying to free the miners from a cavern filling with water right now. Our Brian Palmer joins us live from Somerset, Pennsylvania with the latest.

Brian, are they still waiting for the special equipment?

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are indeed, Kyra. They're waiting for this huge piece of machinery, a drill that's coming from West Virginia. They are going to use that drill to bore a 30-foot hole that has to go about 200-plus feet deep to get to miners.

Now the authorities, as you say, they have reason to believe that at least some of the miners are still alive. They are using various sensitive monitoring devices listening devices, and they believe they've heard the sounds of the miners.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN STRICKLIN, MSHA: The seismic equipment that's used is something similar to what would be used after an earthquake to find survivors and give us a better indication as to the exact location where they may be.

And I wasn't over at the mine when these latest results came in, but apparently, what they do is they set geophones up similar to microphones on the surface, and it allows for a lot better listening, and you can listen to distances up to 500-1, 000 feet underground. And in this case, we're looking at a distance of about 231 feet. And we know the general area where they're located at. And apparently, we got some indications back that there's still people in that particular area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PALMER: Now those last indications came at about 11:00 a.m. So that was couple of hours ago. We're hoping to get another briefing to find out what the latest is in the rescue effort.

But what's going on now, Kyra, right as we speak, mine rescue workers are pumping air through a six-inch hole that goes down 200 plus feet into the mine, which -- it's a horizontal mine. The miners have about 48 inches to 52 inches, so they are really if they're still alive. They're in a very, very dire situation, and the rescue workers hoping that bit of air they're providing is keeping them alive and hopefully displacing some of the millions and millions of gallons of water that are flooding into the site -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: When was the last time they heard the tapping and new at least somebody was alive?

PALMER: There was the tapping that they told us about that happened somewhere around 5:30-6:30, and then Mr. Stricklin was talking about the very, very sort of sensitive listening devices used to detect sounds that they say must have been produced by humans. So not as clearly articulable as tapping, but they're using the geophones, and they did hear what they thought were human-produced sounds at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

PHILLIPS: Wow. Brian Palmer, live from Somerset, Pennsylvania, thank you.

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