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CNN Live Today

Rescuers Racing Against Time to Save Trapped Miners

Aired July 25, 2002 - 12:21   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Rescue crews are racing against time to save nine coal miners right now. They are trapped about 300 feet underground in southwestern Pennsylvania near the town of Somerset.

CNN's Brian Palmer is live on the scene.

Brian -- what's the latest?

BRIAN PALMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra.

Well, we have a better idea of the conditions that these miners may be in. The Quecreek Mine is actually a horizontal shaft. It's about 48 to 52 inches high, which means you can't stand up. That space is inundated with water. But the mine rescuers believe that they have pumped in enough air to create an air bubble above that, so that if the miners are still alive, if they have survived, they do have some air to breathe.

Now, the mine rescuers are waiting for a piece of heavy machinery that's coming in from West Virginia. That's going to be able to bore a 30-inch hole into the ground about 200-plus feet, and hopefully, they will be able to take the miners out through that hole. But that process could take up to 18 hours.

Now, there are some positive signs, according to one of the federal representatives who was here, someone from the Mine Safety Health Administration. He says that they have actually detected sounds from the mine using very sensitive monitoring and listening devices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN STRICKLIN, MINE SAFETY & HEALTH ADMINISTRATION: The seismic equipment that's being 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 to 1,000 feet underground, and in this case, we are looking at a distance of about 231 feet. And we know the general area where they are located at, and apparently we got some indications back that there are still people in that particular area.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PALMER: Those indications came at about 11:00, according to Mr. Stricklin. So they are very positive about that. We are expecting another press conference at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Brian, take us back to the very beginning. What went wrong? How did these men get trapped in the first place?

PALMER: Well, what went wrong was a wall was broken through to an abandoned mine. They were working in this active coal mine. It's only about a year old. They busted a wall from an abandoned mine. There was apparently millions and millions of gallons of water there. There were 18 miners are in there, two separate crews. One of those crews of nine miners was able to get out, one of them wasn't, and those are the people who are still about 200 feet under the earth now -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: All right, Brian, well, we're going to keep following this, hoping that we get all of those men out of there. Brian Palmer, thank you.

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