HUNTINGTON — The three miners killed and six who were injured were a little more than 800 feet along the rescue operation path into the Crandall Canyon Mine when walls of coal caved in on them Thursday.
Officials with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said a 1.6-magnitude pressure-shifting mountain "bump" at 6:35 p.m. Thursday caused the collapse during the effort to reach six miners trapped nearly 1,900 feet underground.
A 60-foot-long wall of coal blew out with such force that it piled coal and debris nearly 5 feet high, burying the rescuers, said Kevin Stricklin, coal safety director for MSHA.
Stricklin said it took another team of rescuers an hour to retrieve the buried men, digging with their hands if they had to. The collapse has resulted in the indefinite suspension of underground operations at the mine, with the looming question of when, if ever, they will resume.
The collapse was the result of materials shifting inside the mine.
"It hit with tremendous force," said assistant U.S. Labor Secretary Richard Strickler, who is over MSHA.
"It knocked out all of the ground support we had in place," he said.
Two of the dead have been identified by family and friends as Brandon Kimber and Dale Black, Crandall Canyon Mine employees.
MSHA on Friday confirmed the identity of one of its employees killed in Thursday's accident. MSHA spokeswoman Amy Louviere said Gary L. Jensen, 53, who worked out of MSHA's Price field office, was among the three rescuers killed.
Louviere said Jensen was assigned to the Price office, which is part of the district office based in Denver, as a member of the special investigations group. The group is assigned to investigate mine accidents for criminal intent on the part of mine owners.
Jensen began his career with MSHA in 2001 as a coal mine inspector at the Colorado office. In July 2003, he was transferred to Price as a roof control specialist.
In a statement released this afternoon, UtahAmerican Energy said five of the six injured also worked for UtahAmerican, while the other worked for MSHA.
Speaking to reporters today, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said the rescue effort has gone from a tragedy to a catastrophe.
"These men died as heroes," he said. "I can think of no better way to express our love for a fellow human being than to risk your life for someone else's as we saw last night."
Huntsman, federal authorities and mine company officials met with the families of the six trapped miners this morning, discussing options in the aftermath of this latest collapse.
In an interview with the Deseret Morning News, Utah Department of Natural Resources spokeswoman Tammy Kikuchi described the meeting as "somber, with some conviction that the mission continue to find the original six."
Huntsman has expressed concerns about the rescue effort. In an interview early this morning, he said it should cease until workers' safety can be guaranteed.
"Let us ensure that we have no more injuries," he said. "We have suffered enough as a state."
The governor told the Morning News later in the day he intended to put together a panel for the state to conduct its own investigation into the disaster to determine if Utah should have more control over mine safety.
The state investigation, Huntsman said, would run parallel to the federal inquiry expected to be launched after the rescue efforts are completed. But it would not be intended to duplicate the work done by MSHA.
Huntsman said the state gave up its authority over mine safety to the federal government decades ago. Now, the governor said, it is time to take another look at what Utah should be doing.
"We're going to want to see if there is reason for us to reconsider how this is done," he said. Huntsman said he already has been in contact with West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin about the state's role in mine safety. West Virginia was the site of last year's Sago Mine disaster.
"We want to look at what West Virginia did after Sago," he said. "There's no sense in reinventing the wheel." The panel would include lawmakers with mining expertise, such as Senate Minority Leader Mike Dmitrich, D-Price, the governor said.
It's not clear how soon the panel would be created, Huntsman said, because the focus right now continues to be on the rescue of the trapped miners. He said there has been no indication yet from MSHA when the federal investigation will begin.
Huntsman spent probably 20 minutes today with the injured miner who is being treated at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center.
Janet Frank, spokeswoman for the Provo hospital, said Huntsman spoke with the man's family and some co-workers at 2 p.m.
"I'd say it was about 20 minutes (length of conversation)," Frank said.
The patient is listed in serious condition and was in surgery Friday afternoon.
Doctors are working on facial fractures the man suffered. He also has a broken leg and an internal head injury.
A drill boring another 8 5/8-inch hole through the mountain to the cavern where the six miners are believed to be trapped has advanced more than 600 feet now and will not stop, even though the underground rescue efforts are halted.
"We have suffered a setback," said Rob Moore, vice president of Murray Energy Corp., which owns the mine. "We have incurred an incredible loss, but this team remains focused on the task at hand — that's the rescue of the miners that have been trapped since Aug. 6. We will remain focused on that effort."
Mine owner Bob Murray was conspicuously absent from today's news conference. Moore said his boss had been in the mine since Thursday night's tragedy, rushing in during the initial collapse. However, when a heckler demanded to know where Murray was, Moore refused to say.
If the latest hole is able to detect signs of life from the six miners trapped underground, MSHA is making plans to drill a hole big enough to drop a rescue capsule inside and bring the men out through the mountain — a distance of nearly 2,000 feet.
The fourth hole was being drilled after geophones that measure vibrations picked up five minutes of "noise" on Wednesday.
Rescuers are downplaying the noise, which was detected when a drill punched a third hole into the cavern. Officials said it could have been animals, rocks falling or even thunder.
Yet they concede the noise was significant enough that they moved the fourth drill site to site of the origination of the noise. The noise registered as graphs on two geophones shortly after rescuers tried to signal the trapped miners.
"We saw spikes about every second and a half that lasts for about five or six minutes," Stickler said early Thursday.
No noise was detected on the geophones as of Thursday morning, he said.
One of the men killed — Dale Black — was desperately trying to reach his cousin, Kerry Allred, one of the trapped miners missing for 12 consecutive days.
"I've got a lot of respect for the love that he had for his family," lifelong friend, Kent Wilson, said today of Black.
"He was very passionate about getting in to save those miners. He only got two days off since they were trapped, and he went off and worked one of them," Wilson said.
He said Black had two children: a 17-year-old son and a grown daughter who lives in Tooele.
Azure Davis, a cousin to Dale Black, was one of a dozen people who attended a midnight vigil just down the street from Castleview Hospital in Price.
"It's really hard," she said. "My dad is crushed."
Despite the anguish that has lasted nearly two weeks of not knowing the fate of Allred and the other five and the fresh pain from Thursday's events, Azure Davis said the search should go on. Others were torn.
While finding the six would bring closure, Sonya Graff, another woman at the vigil, said the latest tragedy is as if "the earth is almost telling you you ain't going to get them."
Authorities say the men killed were rescuers trying to reach Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Hernandez, Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez, who were trapped in the Aug. 6 collapse at the mine. The identities of the three who were killed and the six who were injured Thursday were not officially released.
Castleview Hospital reported that three of the injured miners taken there were treated and released. A rescuer who was taken to University Hospital in Salt Lake City is listed this morning in fair condition, hospital spokeswoman Chantelle Turner said.
The turn of events has left the mining communities reeling.
"It is a devastating blow to what has already been a tragic situation," Price Mayor Joe Piccolo said. Some of the injured were federal Mine Safety and Health Administration workers assisting in the rescue effort.
At Crandall Canyon, anxious families members rushed to the mine's entrance on Thursday night, desperate to learn anything about the fate of their loved ones.
One woman, who spoke only Spanish, begged an Emery County Sheriff's deputy to find out if her husband was alive.
"Not right now," a deputy said.
"She needs to see him," said Siklalic Garcia, translating for the woman.
"She'll have to sit right here then," a deputy replied. "Or go down to Huntington. Or go make a phone call."
The woman and her young daughter erupted in sobs as a wall of news cameras swooped in, capturing her grief. A few minutes later, the deputy returned and said the woman's husband was OK.
Price's mayor talked to the families stationed at Castleview Hospital and said "the mood is very hopeful." He also spoke with family of a dead miner but refused to release any other information.
"Carbon and Emery counties have been no stranger to these disasters." Piccolo's father was killed in a mining accident 50 years ago.
"It is a very stressful way of life known for many years, 100 years perhaps," the mayor said.
And as residents are left stunned and grieving from the latest catastrophe, expressions of empathy, condolences and heart-felt prayers are beginning to emerge.
"If any good can come from these tragedies, it is our hope it will be a heightened awareness and appreciation of those who risk their lives daily in dangerous occupations for the benefit of all, and a renewal of our resolve to support increased safety in the places in which they work," said Bishop John C. Wester of the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City.
"On behalf of the Catholics of Utah, I wish to express our condolences to the families of the rescue workers who died as a result of the second collapse at the Crandall Canyon Mine, as well as our prayers for the swift recovery of the rescue workers and Mining Safety and Health Administration officials who were injured. ... Our prayers are with all of those affected; the original six trapped miners and their families; the families of the victims of the most recent collapse; rescue workers who put their lives at risk for the sake of their brothers; and the entire mining community who are suffering through this terrible series of events."
Wester added that special prayers for the fallen rescue workers, the injured, the six trapped miners and their families will be said at Catholic churches throughout Utah this weekend.
Contributing: Amy Choate-Nielsen, Jens Dana, Lois Collins, Lisa Riley Roche
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com;preavy@com