Miners may be lost forever

? Six coal miners caught in a cave-in may never be found and could forever be lost to the still-quivering mountain, officials conceded Sunday, abandoning the optimism they’ve maintained publicly for nearly two weeks.

Relatives responded by accusing federal officials and the mine’s owners of quitting on the rescue effort and leaving the men for dead.

“We feel that they’ve given up and that they are just waiting for the six miners to expire,” said Sonny Olsen, a spokesman for the families, reading from a prepared statement as about 70 relatives of the trapped miners stood behind him.

Air readings from a fourth hole drilled more than 1,500 feet into the mountainside found insufficient oxygen to support life, and the latest efforts to signal the men were again met by silence.

“It’s likely these miners may not be found,” said Rob Moore, vice president of Murray Energy Corp., co-owner of the Crandall Canyon Mine.

The news marked a shift in tone in mine officials’ assessments of the chances the men would be rescued, hopes they had maintained even after three rescuers were killed and six more hurt Thursday in another “bump,” or wall collapse, inside the mountain.

The families of the missing miners demanded that rescuers immediately begin drilling a 30-inch hole into which a rescue capsule could be lowered. “We are here at the mercies of the officials in charge and their so-called experts. Precious time is being squandered here, and we do not have time to spare,” Olsen said.

Christopher Van Bever, an attorney for Murray Energy, said the company had no immediate response to the families’ statement.

A rescue capsule was used in 2002 to pluck nine trapped miners from the flooded Quecreek mine in Pennsylvania. But those miners were only about 230 feet below the surface, and the drilling took place on a gently rolling dairy farm. The Utah miners are believed to be more than 1,500 feet beneath the surface, with drillers having to work atop a steep sandstone cliff.

Also at Quecreek, rescue workers heard tapping sounds hours after the miners became trapped. Work began on the rescue shaft that day, and the whole ordeal was over in just over three days.

At Crandall Canyon, there has been little evidence that the six miners survived the initial Aug. 6 collapse. Workers have gained limited access to the mine through four boreholes into which video cameras and microphones were lowered. All attempts to signal the miners have met with silence.