THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN FRIDAY, AUGUST 17, 2007
NEWS
NATION
7A
Rescue worker dies in mine
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BY PAUL FOY ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
HUNTINGTON, Utah — A disastrous cave-in Thursday night killed
a rescue worker and injured eight others who were trying to tunnel through rubble to reach six trapped miners, authorities said.
It was a shocking setback on
the 11th day of the effort to find miners who have been confined at least 1,500 feet below ground at the Crandall Canyon mine. It's unknown whether the six are alive or dead.
Robert Murray, Crandall Canyon Mine owner, gathers his thoughts before answering a question at a press briefing Thursday in Huntington, Utah. Rescuers were drilling yet another hole into the mine Thursday, this time aiming for a spot where they had detected mysterious vibrations in the mountain. Officials said Thursday that the latest of three holes previously drilled reached an intact chamber with potentially breathable air.
AI Hartmann/SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Officials said the cave-in was caused by a mountain bump, which commonly refers to pressure inside the mine that shoots coal from the walls with great force. Seismologists say such an event caused the Aug. 6 cave-in that trapped six men inside the central Utah mine. Thursday's bump occurred about 8:30 p.m. EDT.
"All rescue workers have been evacuated from the mine. Nine rescue workers were injured in the accident. One of those suffered fatal injuries," said Dirk Fillpot, a spokesman for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
At least one rescue worker was flown from the Crandall Canyon mine to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo, said Jess Gomez, a spokesman for Salt Lake City's LDS Hospital, which dispatches medical helicopters in Utah.
One rescue worker was in very serious condition at Castleview Hospital, and two were in serious condition there, said jeff Manley, hospital chief executive.
Family members of miners, many in tears, gathered at the mine's front entrance looking for news.
A mine employee, Donnie Leonard, said he was outside the mine when he heard a manager "yelling about a cave-in."
On top of the mountain, rescuers were drilling a fourth hole, aiming for a spot where they had detected mysterious vibrations in the mountain.
A woman who answered the phone at the mine said mine coowner Bob Murray was not available for comment.
Underground, the miners had advanced to only 826 feet in nine days. Mining officials said conditions in the mine were treacherous, and they were frequently forced to halt digging because of seismic activity. A day after the initial collapse, the rescuers were pushed back 300 feet when a bump shook the mountain and filled the tunnel with rubble.
Crews have been drilling holes from the top of the mountain to try to find the miners while others were tunneling through a debris-filled entry to the mine.
Officials said Thursday that the latest of three holes previously drilled reached an intact chamber with potentially breathable air.
Video images were obscured by water running down that bore hole, but officials said they could see beyond it to an undamaged chamber in the rear of the mine. It yielded no sign the miners had been there.
Murray said it would take at least
two days for the latest drill to reach its target, in an area where a seismic listening device detected a "noise" or vibration in 1.5-second increments and lasting for five minutes.
Officials said it was impossible to know what caused the vibrations and on Thursday clarified the limits of the technology.
The device, called a geophone, can pinpoint the direction of the source of the disturbance, but it can't tell whether it came from within the mine, the layers of rock above the mine or from the mountain's surface, said Richard Stickler, chief of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.
The "noise," a term he used a day before, wasn't anything officials could hear. Stickler said. "Really, it's not sounds but vibrations."
Officials stressed that the motion picked up by the geophones could be unrelated to the mine.
Together with the discovery of an intact chamber and breathable oxygen levels, the baffling vibrations offered only a glimmer of hope for rescuing the miners, but Murray seized on the developments Thursday.
WORLD
Nothing had been detected or heard since the five-minute period Wednesday. Stickler said Thursday.
Death toll still climbing after earthquake in Peru
BY MARTIN MEJIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
ICA, Peru — The death toll rose to 450 on Thursday in the magnitude-8 earthquake that devastated cities of adobe and brick in Peru's southern desert. Survivors wearing blankets walked like ghosts through the ruins.
Dust-covered dead were pulled out and laid in rows in the streets.
or beneath bloodstained sheets at damaged hospitals and morgues. Doctors struggled to help more than 1,500 injured, including hundreds who waited on cots in the open air, fearing more
The earthquake's magnitude was raised from 7.9 to 8 on Thursday by the U.S. Geological Survey. At least 14 aftershocks of magnitude 5 or greater followed. The tremors caused renewed anxiety, though there were no reports of additional damage or injuries.
President Alan Garcia flew by helicopter to Ica, a city of 120.000 where a quarter of the buildings collapsed, and declared a state of emergency. He said flights were reaching Ica to take in aid and take out the injured.
"The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets," Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza said to Lima radio station CPN while sobbing. "We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen. Churches, stores, hotels- everything is destroyed."
aftershocks would send the structures crashing down.
"The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets. We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen."
The United Nations said the death toll was expected to rise beyond the 450 reported by Peru.
Services were packed when the quake struck at 6:40 p.m. Wednesday because Aug. 15 is celebrated by Roman Catholics as the day the Virgin Mary rose up to heaven.
Pisco's mayor said at least 200 people were buried in the rubble of a church where they were attending a service. Some 17 others died inside a church in Ica, the Canal N cable news station said. The historic Senor de Luren church was among several heavily damaged in Ica, where at least 57 bodies were taken to the morgue.
"It is quite likely that the numbers will continue to go up since the destruction of the houses in this area is quite total," U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Margareta Wahlstrom said.
Destruction was centered in Peru's southern desert, at the oasis city of Ica and the nearby port of Pisco, about 125 miles southeast of the capital, Lima.
Government doctors called off their national strike for higher pay.
JUAN MENDOZA Mayor of Pisco, Peru
The help includes cash from the United States, United Nations.
"There has been a good international response even without Peru asking for it, and they've been very generous," Garcia said during a stop in Pisco, where so many buildings fell that streets were covered with small mountains of adobe bricks and broken furniture.
Red Cross and European Union as well as tents, water, medicine and other supplies. The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort, equipped with a staff of 800 and 12 operating rooms, is in Ecuador and could quickly sail to Peru if asked.
U. S. officials said.
In Washington, President Bush offered condolences and said the administration was studying how best to send help. One American died in the quake, according to the State Department.
Electricity, water and phone service were down in much of southern Peru. The government rushed police, soldiers and doctors to the area, but traffic was paralyzed by giant cracks and fallen power lines on the Panamerican Highway. Large boulders also blocked Peru's Central Highway to the Andes mountains.
authorities attributed to short circuits at electrical plants where the quake damaged cables and other equipment.
Many people said they had seen "lights in the sky" a phenomenon
In Chincha, a small town near Pisco only 25 miles from the quake's epicenter, an AP Television News cameraman counted 30 bodies in a hospital patio. The face of one victim was uncovered, her eyes open. The feet of another stuck out from under a blanket.
Hundreds of injured lay side-by-side on cots on walkways and in gardens outside hospital buildings, kept outside for fear that aftershocks could topple the cracked wall.
Martin Meia/ASSOCIATED PRESS
"Our services are saturated and half of the hospital has collapsed," Dr. Huber Malma said as he single-handedly attended to dozens of patients.
The quake toppled a wall in Chincha's prison, allowing at least 600 prisoners to flee. Only 29 had been recaptured, national prisons official Muquiel Aguilar said.
Overstretched police and rescue workers in orange uniforms sought to help survivors trying to get some sleep in the streets amid collapsed adobe homes.
"We're all frightened to return to our houses," Maria Cortez said, staring vacantly at the half of her house that was still standing.
Residents look for relatives among bodies of people killed during an earthquake that hit the area late Wednesday in the town of Pisco, Peru. The death toll rose to 450 on Thursday.
The Peruvian Red Cross arrived in Ica and Pisco $7\frac{1}{2}$ hours after the quake, about three times as long as it would normally have taken because of road damage, Red Cross official Giorgio Ferrario said.
In Lima, 95 miles from the epicenter, only one death was recorded. But
the furious two minutes of shaking prompted thousands to flee into the streets and sleep in public parks.
Wednesday's quake caused a tsunami as well, but scientists expected surges of no more than 1.6 feet in faraway Japan.
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