By CHELSEA J. CARTER
Associated Press

HUNTINGTON, Utah - Despite three weeks of drilling and digging that have revealed no signs of life from six men trapped inside a collapsed coal mine, officials said Sunday the search was continuing.

Federal and mine company officials said a seventh borehole was being punched into the Crandall Canyon mine and that a special robotic camera was being lowered into a hole drilled during previous efforts to find the men.

The camera is similar to one used to search within the wreckage of the World Trade Center in New York City after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. It can take images in the darkened cavern from about 50 feet away with the help of a 200-watt light, can travel 1,000 feet from the end of the test hole and has some ability to move around the rubble, officials said.

“We’re very excited about it. The families are thrilled to hear this,” said Colin King, a lawyer for the miners’ families.

Images from the camera were not expected until Monday.

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By JOHN F.L. ROSS
Associated Press Writer

Fire burns next to the site of ancient Olympia

ANCIENT OLYMPIA, Greece - Firefighters backed by aircraft dropped water and foam on the birthplace of the ancient Olympics Sunday to stop wildfires from burning the 2,800-year-old ruins, one of the most revered sites of antiquity.

But the fires burning for three straight days obliterated vast swathes of the country and the death toll rose by 11 on Sunday to 60.

Desperate residents appealed through television stations for help from a firefighting service already stretched to the limit and many blamed authorities for leaving them defenseless.

“Fires are burning in more than half the country,” said fire department spokesman Nikos Diamandis. “This is definitely an unprecedented disaster for Greece.”

Diamandis said 89 new fires broke out during a 24-hour period starting at 6 a.m. Sunday. Twenty-eight were considered particularly dangerous.

Government and firefighting officials have suggested arson caused many of the blazes, and several people had been arrested. The government offered a reward of up to $1.36 million for anyone providing information that would lead to the arrest of an arsonist.

Forest fires are common during Greece’s hot, dry summers - but nothing has approached the scale of the last three days. Arson is often suspected, mostly to clear land for development. No construction is allowed in Greece in areas designated as forest land, and fires are sometimes set to circumvent the law.
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MEANWHILE……

Greek forest fires reward offered

from The BBC Online

A 1m euro (£678,000) reward has been offered to help catch the arsonists suspected of being behind Greek forest fires which have killed at least 60.

New fires continue to break out, with firefighters contending with 63 fresh blazes on Sunday in what officials called an “unprecedented disaster”.

The authorities have already arrested several people over the fires.

Ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympics, was also threatened but firefighters kept the site safe.

Culture Minister George Voulgarakis has arrived in Olympia to oversee the emergency effort.

He said: “As you can see, the archaeological museum and the archaeological site, Olympia, is as it was.

“All the people, the firefighters, the policemen, the volunteers, they fought with the fire and the museum is as it was.”

He added: “There is a big problem in the region, in the area. But the important [thing] is that the archaeological site will not have any problem.”

Helicopters and fire engines

Nikos Diamandis, a Greek fire department spokesman, told the Associated Press news agency: “Fires are burning in more than half the country. This is definitely an unprecedented disaster for Greece.”

Below is a map of the effected area

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By JENNIFER DOBNER
The Associated Press

HUNTINGTON, Utah - Relatives of six miners trapped deep inside a Utah coal mine are holding out hope the sixth - and last - borehole will provide the miracle they’ve craved for more than two weeks.

Other holes drilled into the Crandall Canyon mine have failed to reveal signs of life. The sixth hole is to be drilled Thursday into an area where the miners were last believed to have been working.

“This is the last hole,” mine co-owner Bob Murray said at a news conference Wednesday night. Drilling it, he said, will “bring closure to me that I could never get them out alive.”

But Jackie Taylor, whose daughter Lacee dates one of the six men missing since an Aug. 6 cave-in, said relatives and friends are insisting that more be done.

She issued a plea Thursday for the rescue effort to continue, even though three men died trying to tunnel toward the miners.

“We are so appreciative to all of the rescue members and their families. Don’t get us wrong, we are so appreciative,” Taylor told NBC’s “Today.” “Our love and our prayers go out to all of their family members. But our family members are still under there. They’re underground. We need that closure in our lives also.”

Punching through the fifth borehole Wednesday, rescuers found only a 6-inch void in the mine 1,500 feet down, federal officials said.

By JENNIFER TALHELM
The Associated Press

More scrutiny? Leveled at a Bush recess appointee? You’re doin’ a heck-of-a job, Sticky!

WASHINGTON - As hopes for a rescue dim at Utah’s collapsed Crandall Canyon Mine, critics looking for someone to blame are focusing on the stern-faced director of the government agency that oversees coal mine safety.

Members of Congress, union officials and worker advocates were skeptical before the Aug. 6 accident that Richard Stickler was dedicated enough to worker safety.

The former mine executive faced so much opposition when he was appointed to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration, President Bush had to bypass critics and install him during a congressional recess last October.

Now all three groups are pointing out mistakes they say Stickler has made in handling attempts to rescue six trapped miners. The situation grew more grim last week when three rescue workers were killed in a subsequent cave-in.

Stickler’s career at MSHA will be defined by the Crandall Canyon accident and his next big decision: whether to call off the rescue effort and entomb the six missing miners forever.

“I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,” said Davitt McAteer, who headed MSHA during the Clinton administration and now is vice president of Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.

Critics think any investigation of the accident will ultimately ask why MSHA signed off in June on a mining plan for the area where the collapse occurred.

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By SUSAN SAULNY and CARA BUCKLEY
The New York Times

HUNTINGTON, Utah, Aug. 21 - As relatives on Tuesday laid to rest one of three men killed here trying to rescue six trapped miners, this grieving mining town was torn over the future of the mine and the prospect of the lost miners- being entombed permanently.

An official at the mine, the Crandall Canyon, said it could be back in business under a new name, after blocking off the area that collapsed on Aug. 6.

Robert E. Murray, president of the Murray Energy Corporation, a co-owner of the mine, suggested that other parts of the mine remained safe for work and that mining should resume.

“We would abandon any effort to mine there,” Mr. Murray said, referring to the site of the initial collapse where the six miners were trapped.

“But the reserves are in an entirely different place,” he said Monday night outside the mine.

Before mining could restart, the Mine Safety and Health Administration would have to approve a plan by Murray Energy showing that operations would be safe.

“We were shocked that the subject was even brought up,” a spokesman for the agency said late Tuesday. “M.S.H.A. remains 100 percent focused on the rescue effort.”

The suggestion that the mine might reopen inflamed the emotions of the families of the trapped miners. They questioned how the mine could be safe enough for work but not for rescuing their relatives.

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By CHELSEA J. CARTER
The Associated Press

HUNTINGTON, Utah - With six trapped coal miners all but left for dead in a crumbling mountain, families and friends vented their frustration at the mine’s owner Tuesday and asked: Was it too dangerous to be working there in the first place?

At a funeral Tuesday for one of the three rescue workers killed, a friend of one of the trapped miners confronted mine co-owner Bob Murray and accused him of skimping on the rescue efforts. He then handed Murray a dollar bill.

“This is just to help you out so you don’t kill him,” the man said.

Murray’s head snapped back as if slapped. When the man wouldn’t take back the bill, Murray threw the money on the ground. “I’ll tell you what, son, you need to find out about the Lord,” Murray said.

It was an emotional exchange with an owner who had insisted that rescue of the miners was his top priority since the collapse. And it revealed more than just the frustration of people in this mining community in central Utah’s coal belt, where most still speak in whispers when criticizing the officials whose businesses pay their bills.

Critics are now openly calling the mine a disaster waiting to happen and pointing fingers at Murray Energy Corp. and the federal government as the agents of the tragedy.

Miners’ advocates have accused the Mine Safety and Health Administration in recent years of being too accommodating to the industry at the expense of safety. And they say MSHA was too quick to approve the mining plan at Crandall Canyon despite concerns that it was too dangerous for mining to continue when Murray bought the place a year ago.

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By SIMON ROMERO
The New York Times

A day after a powerful earthquake devastated cities along Peru’s southern coast, government officials put the death toll at 437, with at least 17,000 people displaced and with wide areas without power, telephone service or road access on Thursday night.

At least 300 of the dead were in Pisco, a port city about 125 miles south of Lima, and more were thought to be buried in rubble, local officials said. Dozens were inside the San Clemente cathedral, which was full for Mass when the quake caused it to cave in around 6:40 p.m. on Wednesday. Witnesses said the spire bell clanged horribly in the seconds before it tumbled down.

“I am a real man, but last night I was scared,” said Luis Chávez, 31, who was in the main square when the cathedral collapsed. “There was so much dust that all I could think of was the World Trade Center pictures.”

The mayor of Pisco, Juan Mendoza Uribe, said the quake had destroyed as much as 70 percent of the city. “So much effort and our city is destroyed,” he said, crying audibly, in comments broadcast on the radio station RPP in Lima.

Power and water service were still out in Pisco on Thursday night, and many residents said they would sleep outside again, afraid that aftershocks could topple more structures. In the city center, the wreckage of dozens of old adobe homes lay in the streets. Rescuers, working well into the night, were often forced to walk far out of their way as they carried bodies, sometimes in shouldered coffins, toward a makeshift morgue at the hospital.

In nearby Chincha Alta, a wall collapsed at the Tambo de Mora prison, and about 680 prisoners escaped, according to Manuel Aguilar, vice president of the National Institute of Penitentiaries. About 29 were recaptured and sent to another jail, he said. An Associated Press Television News cameraman in Chincha Alta reported seeing at least 30 bodies laid out on a hospital balcony.

By DAN FROSCH and JENNIFER LEE
The New York Times

HUNTINGTON, Utah, Aug. 16 - Three rescue workers were killed and six others were injured last night when a seismic jolt caused a mine accident during an effort to reach six men who have been trapped at the Crandall Canyon Mine since Aug. 6, mining officials said.

The jolt happened about 6:30 p.m., according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

Officials said the surviving workers suffered injuries including cuts and bruises and chest injuries.

At least 130 rescue workers are involved in the rescue operation, which has stretched 11 days. Though it is unclear how many were working at the time of the accident, all other workers had been evacuated and accounted for last night, said Tammy Kikuchi, a spokeswoman for the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Two of the injured men worked for the federal mine safety agency.

“It’s a devastating to blow to what was already a tragic situation,” said Mayor Joe Piccolo of Price, Utah, who said his father was killed in a mining accident 50 years ago.

A flurry of ambulances and helicopters - some from as far as 140 miles away in Salt Lake City - descended on Crandall Canyon. As one ambulance left, emergency medical technicians could be seen administering aid to a worker.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who was out of state at the time of the accident, rushed to Castleview Hospital in Price, about 25 miles from the mine, where six of the workers were originally taken and one of them died. Two workers were flown to the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, which has a statewide trauma center, and two to Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, where one was declared dead.

A spokesman for the federal mining agency said it was unclear whether rescue operations would resume Friday.

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By MARTIGA LOHN
The Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS - Divers removed another body from the wreckage of a freeway bridge Friday, while the federal transportation secretary offered $50 million to help with recovery and rebuilding.

The known death toll from last week’s collapse reached eight when Navy divers found a body about noon.

The body belonged to Sadiya Sahal, 23, of St. Paul. A body found Thursday was identified as her 2-year-old daughter, Hanah Sahal. Both had been on the list of missing.

Those identifications reduce the list of known missing and presumed dead to five. The medical examiner had initially said remains found Thursday might have belonged to two people, but later clarified that one set of remains was recovered Thursday and another on Friday.

During her visit, Secretary Mary Peters stood near a fallen section of the bridge cluttered by wrecked cars as she announced the latest emergency aid. The funds are an advance on $250 million approved by Congress but not yet appropriated.

The money comes on top of $5 million in federal emergency aid pledged right after the Aug. 1 bridge collapse and $5 million to help the public transit system handle the loss of the heavily traveled span.

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Reuters

HANOI (Reuters) - Rescue officials and soldiers were rushing food to central Vietnam on Thursday, where floods have killed at least 43 people and thousands needed urgent aid, the government and state-run television said.

“Thousands of people are facing hunger and need food aid in the two provinces of Ha Tinh and Quang Binh,” the Vietnam Television (VTV) station said in a news bulletin.

But VTV said rescue efforts had been hampered by serious damage to roads, with many sections washed away, making it tough to deliver aid.

The station showed footage of a man, water up to his chin, receiving packs of instant noodles in the hardest-hit province of Ha Tinh, where at least 15 people have been killed after floods caused by up to 600 mm (24 inches) of rain.

The army has been using high’speed boats to take food to a limited number of flood victims in Ha Tinh, while about 60,000 people have been displaced as floods swept away or damaged their homes, the government said in its disaster report.

Floods killed three people in the neighboring province of Quang Binh and affected 200,000, of whom at least 7,500 had been evacuated to higher ground.

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