Image via WikipediaMontcoal, West Virginia (CNN) -- It could take up to two days to drill bore holes into a sprawling West Virginia coal mine, scene of a massive blast that left at least 25 miners dead, a mining official said Tuesday.
Bulldozers will be used to clear a path through the hills and bring in equipment to reach the affected part of the Upper Big Branch Mine, Kevin Stricklin of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration said.
The holes will be drilled 1,200 feet down to help ventilate the mine and collect samples. Rescue crews early Tuesday halted their efforts to reach four miners still unaccounted for, as concentrations of methane and carbon monoxide posed a safety risk, Stricklin said.
"We're hoping to bulldoze our way up there today," he said. "And probably a good guesstimate would be about two days, to get the bore hole into the mine."
Asked about earlier estimates the drilling process could take about 12 hours, Stricklin said, "We can't put a bore hole into the mine at that depth in 12 hours."
President Obama said Tuesday that the federal government stands ready to offer support for the rescue and recovery efforts. He also offered his condolences to the family and friends of the miners killed in the accident.
From CNN – More at:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/06/west.virginia.mine.explosion/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+Most+Recent%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a76a237d-9c54-427b-9b78-c01bafdb14e8)
Posts
