3rd Hole Planned to Reach Utah Miners

Rescue supplies arrive at the entrance of the Crandall Canyon Mine during rescue efforts for six trapped coal miners Sunday, Aug. 12, 2007, in near Huntington, Utah. With their efforts to drill deep inside a Utah mountain yielding no signs of six trapped miners, exhausted rescuers pondered alternatives including drilling another hole big enough to accommodate a human-size capsule to get inside the tunnel. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) (Rick Bowmer - AP)

Rescuers have also been slowly moving horizontally through the mine to try to reach the men.

The horizontal route was blocked about 2,000 feet from the men. Rubble had been cleared from about 580 feet of that route, Stickler said Sunday. The distance had been estimated at 650 feet late Saturday. The discrepancy was not immediately explained.

Crews working that route had to be withdrawn for a time overnight because of earth movements known as "mountain bumps," officials said.

Stickler would not estimate how long it would take to reach the miners on the horizontal route.

Councilwoman Julie Jones, who was with the families when they were briefed, said they were very hopeful.

Of the miners' relatives, she said, "They are one family."

Mike Marasco, son-in-law of missing miner Kerry Allred, said his family has been sleeping on the floor of the school where families were gathering to somehow identify with their father's discomfort inside the mine.

"It's hard to just sit here. We want to feel what he felt. We've been sleeping on the floor ... it's not even close to being in the mine but it's something."

The miner's son, Cody Allred, 32, looked sad and exhausted. "I've accepted all possibilities," he said.

The cause of the collapse has not been officially established.

Murray has insisted that the collapse was caused by an earthquake. Seismologists say there was no earthquake and that readings on seismometers actually came from the collapse.

A 2 1/2-inch-wide hole was drilled first into the miners' presumed location.

A two-way communications system was dropped down that hole but there was no answer to repeated calls of "Hello in the mine."

Air samples taken through a tube placed down the small hole ominously found oxygen levels too low for survival.

The bigger drill boring the nearly 9-inch-wide hole punched into the mine 130 feet from the small hole late Friday. Rescuers banged on the drill steel to signal the miners but there was no response. They then lowered the video camera.

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Associated Press writers Alicia Caldwell, Chris Kahn and Brock Vergakis contributed to this report.