Rescuers within 1,000 feet of trapped miners

Crews hoping to get food and air to six coal miners drilled to within about 1,000 feet of the trapped men today, one of the mine’s owners said, though it still was not known whether the miners were alive.

Rescuers cutting a larger hole to the chamber where the men were believed to be also might reach the spot in two days, said Bob Murray, chairman of Murray Energy Corp., owner of the Crandall Canyon mine.

The news was substantially better than the night before, when crews had to halt drilling because of unstable ground beneath them.

Efforts to clear tunnels leading to the chamber where the men were believed trapped were to resume in the afternoon, Murray said.

Murray said he invited the son of one trapped miner and the brother of another with him on a trip inside the mine to show them the progress of the rescue efforts.

He also renewed his attacks on media coverage of the disaster and continued to insist the collapse was caused by an earthquake, contradicting seismologists who said the cave-in itself was what registered 3.9 on the Richter scale.

“From our mining experience, we know this was an earthquake,” Murray said.

“It seems to me the media’s more concerned about trying to place blame than they are about the families and the actual rescue effort underground,” he added.