SALT LAKE CITY -The search for six men trapped in a coal mine during a cave-in nearly four weeks ago is effectively over, after a robotic camera failed to provide any useful information, a federal mine official said.
"We talked with the families and we basically told them we're pretty much out of options," Rich Kulczewski, spokesman for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, said on Friday.
Mining officials told the families that the robotic camera was successfully dropped down the fourth of seven holes bored into the mountain, but that it quickly became stuck in the mud as it moved over piles of debris, Kulczewski said late Friday. Officials also could not retrieve the camera and had to leave it stuck about 50 feet from the surface, he said.
