Nine coal miners were trapped in a flooded shaft early Thursday after they apparently ruptured a nearby abandoned mine that was filled with water, officials said. Hours later, rescuers reported hearing tapping.
\nThe tapping created \u201ca glimmer of hope\u201d that the miners, who were trapped at the Quecreek Mine late Wednesday, are safe, said Betsy Mallison, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
\n\u201cIt is a race against time because the water is still filling (the mine),\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to raise expectations at this time, but it\u2019s a good sign.\u201d
\nRescue workers at the mine about 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh heard the tapping around 3 a.m. after drilling a 6-inch-wide air hole. David Sbaffoni, with the state Bureau of Deep Mine Safety, said he has no doubt that at least some of the miners were alive after a second round of tapping was heard around 6 a.m.
\n\u201cWe tapped and we heard tapping back,\u201d Sbaffoni said. He said the miners apparently dashed into an air pocket about 200 feet from where the wall of the abandoned mine was breached.
\nEmergency crews planned to bring in a larger drilling rig to bore a 36-inch wide hole down to where the miners are believed to be. Then, a basket would be lowered to the miners. Officials said it could take as many as 18 hours to drill the larger hole.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a very ticklish situation we\u2019re in\u201d with water still filling the mine, said David Hess, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection. \u201cIt\u2019s very touch and go.\u201d
\nAnother crew of miners had managed to wade to safety in water up to their necks after the accident shortly before 10 p.m. Wednesday sent water gushing into the mine, authorities said.
\nThe two crews of miners were 300 feet underground and about a mile and a half from the entrance when they hit the adjacent, abandoned mine that was last active in the 1950s, Mallison said. That mine did not appear on maps, authorities said.
\nThe first crew was able to radio the second and warn them about the water, officials said.
\n\u201cSome of the guys were able to get out and were wading in water up to their necks,\u201d said Alan Baumgardner, a dispatcher with Somerset County emergency services.
\nAbout 80 relatives of the miners gathered inside a fire hall in Sipesville, about two miles from the mine. Red Cross grief counselors were on hand, and the mood inside the fire hall was described by a disaster worker as tense, with little talking as the families huddled together.
\nAuthorities said the mine shaft has a dip in one area. The second crew was working in the lower area closer to the entrance when the flooding happened. The dip is now flooded and the first crew is trapped between the water and the end of the mine shaft, authorities said.
\nThe mine was being excavated using a technique in which miners excavate roomlike sections leaving behind pillars of coal that can support the roof.
\nMembers from a specialized mine rescue team from Indiana, Pa., as well as the Pennsylvania Bureau of Deep Mine Safety and federal occupational safety experts were on the scene.
\nThere has been at least one prior accident at the mine, operated by Black Wolf Coal Co., according to the state Bureau of Deep Mine Safety. No one was injured when a 40-by-30-foot section of the roof collapsed last October.
\nThe company employs about 30 miners, according to department records. The mine began operations about a year ago, the company said.
\nThe site is in Lincoln Township in largely rural Somerset county, about 10 miles northwest of the scene of the crash of hijacked Flight 93 during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
\nMine worker Ted Lepley, who works for Black Wolf Coal but was not on the scene at the time of the accident, stood near the mine\u2019s entrance and awaited word.
\n\u201cThose are my brothers down there,\u201d Lepley said. \u201cGod help them. Nobody knows what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nine coal miners were trapped in a flooded shaft early Thursday after they apparently ruptured a nearby abandoned mine that was filled with water, officials said. Hours later, rescuers reported hearing tapping. The tapping created \u201ca glimmer of hope\u201d that the miners, who were trapped at the Quecreek Mine late Wednesday, are safe, said Betsy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}