The search for six men trapped inside a collapsed coal mine continued today, despite three weeks of drilling and digging that have revealed no signs of life.

The massive rescue effort to find six coal miners caught in a cave-in took a disheartening turn when a narrow hole drilled more than 1,800ft into the earth yielded no sounds of life and barely any oxygen.

Hundreds of rescuers smashed through walls of rock in a desperate race to reach six coal miners trapped 1,500 feet below ground by a cave-in so powerful authorities initially thought it was an earthquake.