If alive, miners are in the dark ... and listening

HUNTINGTON, Utah -- If the six trapped miners are alive, they may be sitting in inky darkness, their headlamps burned out. Wearing thin work clothes in the 58-degree cold, they could be chilled to the bone if water is seeping into their chamber 150 stories below ground.

How much air they might have is anyone's guess.

"I'm sure their lights have died by now. I'm sure it's pitch black," said miner Robby Robertson, 27, of Orangeville, Utah, who worked in the mine several years ago. "Imagine the darkest place you've ever been."

Early today, rescuers drilled through to a pocket in the coal mine where the six miners have been trapped, but heard no sound through a microphone that was lowered into the collapsed mine.

The mine's co-owner remained hopeful that the six men were still alive despite the silence.

"I wouldn't look at it as good or bad news. The work is not done," said Bob Murray, chairman of Murray Energy.

Mining officials were able to take an air reading from the pocket and said the air quality was good, with 20.5 percent oxygen, some carbon monoxide and no methane.

"That means if they're alive, they're going to stay alive in that atmosphere," Murray said during a news conference early today.

Drilling continued on a wider hole, which could accommodate a powerful camera to provide a view inside the pocket, deliver food and water, and hopefully give a more definitive answer about the miners' fate.

But the 2 ½-inch hole is a crucial passage for the first possible contact with the men since a collapse sealed them 1,500 feet below ground early Monday at the Crandall Canyon mine in central Utah.

The missing miners were working in an area with an 8-foot ceiling, and the corridors in the mine are typically about 14 feet wide, officials said.

Murray said that if the miners survived the cave-in itself, they would probably be spending most of the time in the dark to conserve their headlamp batteries, which are generally good for about 12 hours each.

"As soon as they realized they were trapped, it is very likely they went down to one light and very likely they went into total darkness a lot of the time and only used that light for the purpose of getting to the materials they need to ensure their survival," Murray said.

Their other materials typically include a half-gallon of water each, he said.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said each miner should also have had at least two emergency air packs, each of which supplies about an hour's worth of oxygen. Whether air packs were within reach is not known.

Mine operators also are required to keep enough rations for 96 hours, so the Utah miners might have tried to retrieve those, if they were present.

Miners usually wear jeans, sometimes with coveralls on top, and often carry a light denim jacket, Murray said. The steady 58-degree temperature -- which can be comfortable when you're working, less so when you're not -- would not be a problem as long as the men were not wet, the mining veteran said.

He said the area where the miners are believed to be is thought to be "reasonably dry" with possibly some water seepage that they could drink.

Officials had said drilling the 2 ½-inch hole would allow them to lower the two-way microphone, as well as a simple downward-pointing camera with limited visual range.

Simultaneously, rescuers struggled to clear rubble from a horizontal tunnel in an attempt to actually reach the miners and bring them out. But progress was slow at about 300 feet a day, and officials said it could take a week or more to break through.

"It's incredibly labor-intensive," Moore said.

"If these people are still alive, I'm sure they're all sitting together," Robertson said. "I'm sure they're all just trying to comfort each other. I'm sure they know people are trying to get to them. You're closer to the crew you're on than your own family."

"You try to stick together with one another, which is what we did," said Dennis Hall, one of nine men who survived 77 hours trapped in Pennsylvania's flooded Quecreek Mine in 2002. "We talked to one another and prayed to God a lot."

Trapped miners also typically write letters to their loved ones and put the notes in their lunch pails.

"You feel helpless because you're depending on someone else to get you out of the situation," Hall, 53, of Johnstown, Pa., said. "When your back's up against the wall and you've used all your efforts to get out, it's a hell of a feeling."

The mining company has withheld the names of the six miners, but The Associated Press has confirmed five: Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez.

Meanwhile, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, analyzing Monday's seismic event determined the seismic waves came from an underground collapse. Murray contends that a natural earthquake caused the collapse.