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Author Topic: Crandall Canyon, Utah Mining Disaster- 8/6/07, 9 Dead & 6 Injured  (Read 13491 times)
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sharon
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« Reply #40 on: August 31, 2007, 08:19:01 AM »

MuffyBee -- thanks for posting the updates. My heart aches for the families of the miners.
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« Reply #41 on: September 01, 2007, 11:45:56 AM »

Utah Mine Rescue Called Of After Almost Four Weeks

August 31, 2007 10:46 p.m. EST

Matthew Borghese - AHN News Writer

Salt Lake City, UT (AHN) - Federal authorities have suspended efforts to find six miners who have been trapped underground for almost four weeks.

Rescue workers still have no signs that the miners are alive, following a collapse at the Crandall Canyon Mine. Authorities have been working to save the lives of miners Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez who have been trapped since August

However, despite multiple attempts to make contact with the miners, there remains no evidence that the six men survived the collapse.

"They said, 'We've exhausted the options that we know about,'" attorney Colin King, who represents the families of the missing miners, said.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7008376842

Bless the miners, their families and friends. 
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« Reply #42 on: September 06, 2007, 06:13:38 PM »

September 06, 2007
Robot-Assisted Rescuers Seek Answers in Wake of Utah Mine Collapse

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=DB306EAE-E7F2-99DF-391FE3B80A4AECF0&chanID=sa007

Funeral Services This Week For 3 Trapped Miners
http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_248121007.html

MSHA head testifies agency wasn't aware of earlier 'bump' at Crandall Canyon mine
By Thomas Burr http://origin.sltrib.com/ci_6807178
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« Reply #43 on: September 17, 2007, 12:24:40 PM »

Thousands attend mine country's Celebration of Heroes
By Steve Fidel
Deseret Morning News
Published: Sept. 16, 2007 12:16 a.m. MDT
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695210543,00.html
HUNTINGTON, Emery County — An outdoor community concert Saturday was called the right event at the right time for a community still reeling from the coal mine tragedy that claimed nine lives and left six others injured.

"It's breathtaking. I don't know what else to say," said Lee Cratsenburg, whose brother, Dale Black, was one of the three men killed trying to rescue the six miners trapped Aug. 6 in the Crandall Canyon Mine.
(snipped)
The mayor said the Governor's Commission on Mine Safety, formed after the Crandall Canyon disaster, will also hold a daylong meeting in Huntington on Sept. 25. Miners interested in giving their input to the committee will be invited to participate in the meeting that Gordon said will likely last the entire day.

----------------------------------------------------
Nation in brief: $300,000 donated to men who died in Utah mine
Posted on Fri, Sep. 14, 2007 10:40 PM
Victims’ families aided
http://www.kansascity.com/news/nation/story/276194.html
HUNTINGTON, Utah | More than $300,000 has been donated to the families of the nine men who died last month inside the Crandall Canyon mine, the mayor said Friday.

Each of the nine families has received at least $15,000 so far, said Mayor Hilary Gordon, who established and controls the two funds. Donations are still arriving, and the city plans to keep disbursing donations to families in equal amounts.
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« Reply #44 on: September 22, 2007, 11:10:23 AM »



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« Reply #45 on: December 24, 2007, 02:55:43 PM »

Dec 24, 1:52 PM EST

After Collapse, Utah Mine's Fate Unclear

By PAUL FOY
Associated Press Writer
 HUNTINGTON, Utah (AP) -- A lone watchman guards Utah's Crandall Canyon mine, protecting what is more a tomb than a coal operation.

The shaft has been walled off with cinderblocks, and makeshift memorials and Christmas wreaths serve as reminders of the twin disasters that took place there last summer.

On Aug. 6, six miners were caught in a thunderous cave-in. Then, on Aug. 16, three men were killed in another collapse while trying to tunnel through the quivering mountain to the victims. After that, the rescue was abandoned.

Nearly five months later, the cause of the original disaster is still under investigation, and the fate of the mine - and the miners - is unresolved, officially at least.

The state refuses to declare the six miners dead without bodies.

The mine's co-owner, Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., will not say whether it plans to reopen it. But such a move - which would require the approval of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management - appears unlikely.

The mine doesn't have much coal left, and since the accident, the company has stripped it of conveyer belts, power lines and other equipment and let shafts fill with water, said James F. Kohler, a BLM official in Utah.

"Obviously it would take a significant expense to reopen the mine," Kohler said.

Nor is it known whether the six bodies can ever be recovered.

"We are always leaving the door open," said Kevin Stricklin, who oversees coal mine safety for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

The twin disasters are under investigation by federal regulators, a state commission and various congressional committees.

Lawyers for the families of the men killed in the initial disaster contend that at the time, the company was pulling down pillars of coal supporting the ceiling.

Murray Energy chief Bob Murray has insisted that retreat mining, as the practice is called, had nothing to do with the collapse. He argued from the start that it was caused by an earthquake.

Huntington is a hardscrabble town of 2,000 where coal mining is considered an honorable profession, and it's hard to find anything that pays more.

Mayor Hilary Gordon said many residents are conflicted over the disaster: They hate federal regulation but want the mines kept safe. They worry about unsafe mining, but won't speak publicly for fear a family member will lose a job paying $50,000 or more a year.

What made the rescue attempt so poignant was that every miner knew that there was almost no chance they would find any of the trapped men alive, and that some probably would die trying.

"But they weren't going to be the ones that would ever give up hope," said Wendy Black, widow of section boss Dale "Bird" Black, who was at the forefront of the rescue effort, operating a 65-ton grinding machine that bored its way through the rubble toward the trapped miners.

According to Murray Energy, Black volunteered for the job when nobody else wanted it. Miners said it wasn't the danger of another cave-in that bothered them - it was the fear that they wouldn't be able to stop the machine before it started ripping a buried body to pieces.

Black told his wife that when it was all over, he was going to need some help.

Black, 48, never encountered any of the trapped miners, dead or alive. He took the full brunt of another cave-in that killed him and two other would-be rescuers. Flying chunks of coal snapped his neck, broke his back and crushed most of the bones of his face.

"My husband, what he did was very honorable. What he did for those families was just the way he was. He lived every day as big as he died," said his widow, who lost her father to coal mining when she was 8 and has made it clear to her only son, a teenager, that he never will work at a mine. "I'm very proud of what my husband did."

Karen Jobe Templeton, an artist chosen to cast a bronze memorial of the faces of the nine dead, has grown close to all the victims' families, trying to capture their essential personalities - a twinkle in the eye for Black.

"The grief comes in waves," said Templeton, working in a barn studio outside Helper, a nearby coal town. "You get through it today, but tomorrow may bring it again."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UTAH_MINE_COLLAPSE?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
--------------------------------------

I wonder since the  men missing and presumed dead but not legally declared dead, does this mean their families can't receive benefits?  Are they able to collect life insurance if policies had been purchased?  And what about social security benefits if there were surviving spouses and/or children?  This is stange!  There is no way those  men are alive.
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LouiseVargas
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« Reply #46 on: December 24, 2007, 08:51:27 PM »

What a terribly sad story.
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RIP Grumpy Cat :( I will miss you.


« Reply #47 on: January 02, 2008, 05:24:53 PM »

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695240635,00.html
Interesting article here!!
Won't let me copy and paste though  Mad
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« Reply #48 on: January 02, 2008, 06:07:45 PM »

Thank you for bringing this to the thread Nut.  I was just looking at news on the web about the Sago mine explosion and there was a small paragraph about the Crandall mine disaster. I really feel badly for those that lost loved ones and friends in the mining disasters, and on top of that, knowing they are still entombed and may never be recovered.   I think what this artist is doing is a fine tribute to the memories of the men and their families. 
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« Reply #49 on: July 24, 2008, 08:30:39 PM »

Utah mine collapse caused by faulty design: probe



By Dan Whitcomb 2 hours, 15 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 2007 Utah coal mine collapse that killed six miners and three rescuers was triggered by a faulty mine design, federal investigators said on Thursday, rejecting the owner's claim that it was caused by an earthquake.
 In announcing its findings, the Mine Safety and Health Administration fined the Crandall Canyon Mine's operator $1.6 million for a violations of its safety code. Genwal's engineering firm, Agapito Associates Inc., was fined $220,000.

Six coal miners were killed in the dramatic cave-in of the Crandall Canyon Mine in central Utah on August 6, 2007 that drew worldwide media coverage as rescuers made frantic efforts from below ground and above to reach the men.

Ten days later two mine employees and a Mine Safety and Health Administration inspector died during a second collapse that forced officials to end the rescue effort and say there was no hope of finding the trapped miners alive.

Outspoken Crandall Canyon Mine owner Robert Murray said at the time that the collapse was due to an earthquake in the area, but MSHA investigators dismissed that assertion in releasing the findings at a briefing with reporters in Utah on Thursday.

"First of all it was not, and I'll repeat not, a natural occurring earthquake but in fact it was a catastrophic outburst of the coal pillars that were used to support the ground above the coal seam," MSHA chief Richard Stickler said.

Stickler said the pillars "failed under the excessive load and ejected coal very violently and filled up most of the tunnels or entries" with coal and debris.

The cave-in registered as a 3.9 magnitude seismic event and covered 50 acres, or an area the size of 40 American football fields, according to a report released in June by Utah seismologists.

Among the violations cited against Genwal were failing to contact MSHA after previous collapses, failing to revise its roof control plan, removing coal that had been used to support the roof and maintaining inadequate pillars.

"It was a mine design issue and the design created pillars that were simply not large enough to support the load," MSHA investigator Richard Gates said.

Rescuers who could not immediately determine if the trapped miners were alive or dead bored seven holes into the shaft in a desperate bid to find them, but were unable to establish contact before the second cave-in forced them to give up.

The Crandall Canyon Mine is on a high desert plateau some 140 miles south of Salt Lake City, in what is known as Utah's "castle country" because of the towering rock spires that dot the rugged landscape.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080724/us_nm/mine_utah_dc
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« Reply #50 on: September 25, 2008, 11:56:11 PM »

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« Reply #51 on: January 01, 2009, 10:55:20 PM »

Jan 1, 4:38 PM EST

Family of Utah mine collapse victim awarded money


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A coal company has been ordered to pay full benefits to the family of one of the six miners killed in the 2007 collapse of the Crandall Canyon mine.

An administrative judge for the Utah Labor Commission ordered Genwal Resources Inc. and Rockwood Casualty Insurance Co. to pay $565 per week for 312 weeks from the date of the cave-in to the family of Juan Carlos Payan, the Deseret News reported Thursday. That's a total of more than $176,000.

In addition to the six miners killed on Aug. 6, 2007, three more people died in a later collapse during a failed rescue attempt. The mine was permanently closed and the miners' bodies were never recovered.

Payan's family said the 22-year-old miner was the main source of support for his disabled father, mother and two young siblings in Ensenada, Mexico.

The companies said they shouldn't have to pay the full benefit amount because Payan had two other siblings working in Utah to help the family.

Judge Aurora Holley ruled on behalf of the family, the commission said.

Bret Gardner, an attorney for Genwal Resources and Rockwood Casualty Insurance, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the companies have no comment because the case is still pending and "has not yet reached its final resolution." He said the companies are considering an appeal.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MINE_COLLAPSE_BENEFITS?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
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« Reply #52 on: June 28, 2009, 08:36:22 PM »

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEEP_COAL_MINING?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
Jun 28, 3:23 PM EDT
Utah's deep coal operators face heavy regulation
By PAUL FOY
AP Business Writer
HELPER, Utah (AP) -- Two years after a Utah mine collapsed, entombing six miners more than 2,000 feet under a mountain and also killing three members of a rescue team, the state's coal operators are backing away from rich coal reserves held deep under the ground.
Coal mines have come under intense scrutiny in every part of the country, with the Mine Safety and Health Administration tripling fines against all coal mines last year, to $152.7 million.
But in Utah, where easy access to coal was exhausted more than a decade ago, operators say they have been hit especially hard because of the extreme depths at which they dig for coal.
The risks are compounded by a common method of coal removal called retreat mining, which has operators sometimes flirting with disaster by deliberately inducing cave-ins.
The Crandall Canyon collapse in 2007 shows what can go wrong.
A bounce, a type of seismic jolt, imploded with the force of two million pounds of explosives at Crandall, said Michael McCarter, a professor of mining engineering at the University of Utah.
The tremor flattened a section of the mine roughly the size of 63 football fields, leaving six miners entombed 2,160 feet under mountain cover. Another cave-in 10 days later killed three members of a rescue team, including a federal mining inspector.
Federal regulators, stung by criticism following mine disasters from West Virginia to Utah, quickly clamped down.
"We'll never know if we make the right decision - we'll just know when we make the wrong decision," said Kevin Stricklin, coal-mining boss for the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
But with federal inspectors on site practically every day, executives for several Utah mines grumble that the inspectors are writing up citations mostly for small offenses - a pile of coal dust there, a spill of grease here.
About 30 miles away from Crandall is the Horizon mine, operated by American West Resources Inc.
Horizon was put on a special watch with twice the national average of safety violations.
So to appease regulators, Horizon retreated from a section of its mine that logged 26 roof falls over the previous two years.
The section contained 300,000 tons of high-quality coal and easy access to millions of tons more.
"We're a small company, and we made a hard decision," said Dan Baker, chief executive officer for Salt Lake City-based America West Resources Inc., a public company. "I don't know how many millions of dollars went into developing that section."
Other companies are following suit.
Utah's largest coal operator, St. Louis-based Arch Coal Inc., turned away from a deep coal seam at the Dugout mine in central Utah, leaving behind 4 million tons of coal a year ago.
McCarter and other mining experts question whether regulation has gone too far.
Mining authorities ordered a new method of longwall mining that effectively cuts West Ridge's reserves in half, "and I'm not really sure anybody has proven it any safer," McCarter said.
The cave-ins are part of everyday deep mining, McCarter said. Two common methods of coal removal, longwall and retreat mining, depend on orderly, controlled cave-ins for safety.
But federal officials say the size of the Crandall Canyon disaster showed more scrutiny was needed.
"In the past, anything an operator submitted - if it was a reputable operator - we took their word for it," Stricklin said.
Others agree the tighter regulations are a welcome change, because mining companies for years got a free pass.
"It was a rubber stamp," said Mike Dalpiaz, the mayor of Helper and a United Mine Workers of America vice president. "We had to spill blood before they started paying attention."
Miners are paid well for the dangerous job - around $65,500 a year, double the region's average wage, according to the Utah Department of Workforce Services
About 4,000 feet inside Horizon via a honeycomb of sloping tunnels, Dallen McFarland used a cable-connected joystick to finish boring a tunnel with a 50-ton cutting machine.
He didn't flinch when the walls - miners call them ribs - started making noises like a knuckle cracking, with the weight of 800 feet of mountain cover bearing down.
"When your ribs are popping, that's good because it means they aren't storing energy," McFarland said.
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« Reply #53 on: March 09, 2012, 11:03:46 PM »

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57394535/charges-announced-in-deadly-utah-mine-collapse/
Charges announced in deadly Utah mine collapse
March 9, 2012

(AP) SALT LAKE CITY - Misdemeanor criminal charges have been filed and fines levied against the operator of a Utah mine where a 2007 collapse killed six miners, two rescuers and a federal inspector, federal prosecutors said Friday.

U.S. Attorney David B. Barlow said the mine operator, Pepper Pike, Ohio-based Genwal Resources Inc., an affiliate of Murray Energy Corp, has agreed to plead guilty to two counts of violating mandatory health and safety standards and pay a $500,000 fine.

Six miners died at Crandall Canyon in the August 2007 collapse so powerful that it initially registered as a 3.9-magnitude earthquake. Another cave-in 10 days later killed two rescuers and a federal inspector.

The operation was eventually called off after drilling into the mountain found no sign of the trapped men. Their bodies remain deep in the mine's catacombs in central Utah.

In documents filed in federal court in Salt Lake City Friday, Genwal attorneys note that while it has agreed to plead guilty to the charges and pay the fine, should the court not accept the plea, the company can withdraw the agreement.
 ::snipping2::
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