Posted by Helen on: 08.21.2007 /
I’ve been following the rescue efforts in the news; the latest I read was that the mining company is likely to give up the search.
Do you think that’s the best decision or should they keep going until they find the miners? Does it make a difference that this particular rescue effort has been so risky that it has resulted in deaths and injuries?
If it’s a choice between using money to find workers unlikely to be alive, or to help needy people who are definitely alive, I think that presents a moral dilemma about how to allocate resources. However in this case I suspect it’s cutting into profits rather than taking money away from needy alive people. Profits those miners caught in the mine collapse were partly responsible for creating. I’m sure if any of them were people I knew personally and cared about, I wouldn’t want the rescue efforts to stop until they had been found, dead or alive.
Comment by: Mike O
1 08/21/07 8:19 AM | Comment Link |Non knowing specifically what was said, I can’t imagine them “stopping looking” for the miners. I would hope it’s just a matter of them changing from a “rescue” to “we’ll get to the bodies in good time.”
In order for them to “stop,” they would have to abandon the mine, and if profits are a factor, they would never do that. Just keeping the mine alive means, at some level, that they’ll eventually get to the bodies.
But to your question, at what cost? If someone had fallen overboard in the ocean, at some point you’d stop looking, right?
Comment by: Rachel
2 08/21/07 9:30 AM | Comment Link |Personally, if my husband was trapped in the mine, I would want the authorities to do everything possible to rescue him. But once this much time had passed AND three other people were killed in the rescue attempt, I just couldn’t justify asking more people to risk their lives.
Comment by: Karen
3 08/21/07 5:34 PM | Comment Link |The New York Times had an interesting story yesterday about a group of mine workers in the 50s in W. Virginia who were trapped for 10 days and survived. The mine had been flooded, so they had water to drink and oxygen (obviously) but they were totally given up for dead.
It was only after the mine owners pumped the water out and went down there that they found the guys still alive.
I guess the lesson is that people can survive a long time if they have air and water - which it’s not clear they had in Utah, sadly.
A book recommendation: Germinal, Emile Zola’s masterpiece. If you ever want a dramatic story seared into your brain about what it’s like to work in a mine, this is it. It makes How Green Was My Valley look like Kindergarten. Really wonderful book.
Comment by: David H
4 08/21/07 7:34 PM | Comment Link |All the facts are not in, but the two primary means for attempting to locate and rescue/extract the bodies of the miners have failed. I listened to some mining experts talk about the mining process being used in this mine and there is some question whether there is an economic reason for the mining company to ever return to the area in which these miners were located at the time of the cave-in. That same method, called retreat mining or pillar yanking, is what has made the mine (the entire mountain in fact) so unstable that sending in rescuers would almost surely result in more deaths.
According to what I have heard and read, pillars of coal were all that was left in the area of the mine that collapsed. The rest of the coal seem had been extracted and the pillars were left to “hold up the roof.” In retreat mining the pillars are purposefully removed as miners retreat from the mined area. The coal in one set of collapsed pillars is collected then the miners retreat again and yank out the next set of pillars. The problem is that an entire section of the mine collapsed on top of the retreating miners. Under the circumstances, mining experts say it is highly unlikely that a) those miners are still alive and b) that their bodies will ever be found because there is little reason for the mine to send people back into that section and lots of reasons not to.
I understand the feelings of the family. They want their loved ones found and believe very much that the mine owner put profit ahead of safety for their men. There may also be plenty of people willing to risk their lives in the hopes of saving those who are lost. But should someone else lose a brother, son or husband in the hopes that another’s loved ones can be saved? I’m not sure I could ask that or even accept it from the willing.
Comment by: Helen
5 08/22/07 6:47 PM | Comment Link |Thanks everyone for your comments.
David wrote:
David, I’m intrigued that you wouldn’t necessarily let people volunteer their lives for this. That does make sense if it seems like a lost cause.
Here’s the latest news article - this just went up in the last hour:
Utah mine boss vows to keep searching
Comment by: Helen
6 09/4/07 5:52 AM | Comment Link |So they did eventually end the search. They never found the six miners, but there no longer seemed any possibility of them being alive.
Mine search over, Utah towns try to cope