The front page of the Evening Herald, Pottsville, March 4, 1977, reporting on the mining disaster at the Porter Tunnel, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, which occurred on March 1, 1977. Articles from that edition of the newspaper follow here:
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RESCUE WORK SLOW; NO WORD ON SEVEN
TOWER CITY, Pennsylvania (UPI) — Officials said today hard coal was hampering efforts to rescue Robert Adley from the blackness of a coal mine where he has been trapped for three days.
John Shutack, a federal mine inspector, said a 27-foot thick wall of coal separated the rescue team from the 37-year-old miner at 7 a.m. and that it would probably be another 24 hours before it reached him
Shutack said Adley remains in good spirits and health and is being few periodically.
Federal Mine safety officials were making plans Friday to being a mine rescue from Salt Lake City in case present efforts fail. The rig would be used to drill a hole 62 inches in diameter through the side of the mountain to the area where Adley is entrapped.
Shutack said Adley, the father of two children, cannot hear seven other miners who were also trapped by a sudden flood three days ago and does not know their whereabouts. The miners were entombed when millions of gallons of water burst through the mine. Two other miners are known dead and three were critically injured.
Rescuers working in eight hour shifts in the grimy Porter Tunnel of the Kocher Coal Company were more than halfway through the wall of coal today moving at a rate of between 1 to 1 1/2 feet per hour in their effort to reach Adley.
Progress has been tedious in gouging the tunnel through the coal vein to reach Adley, since the passage way is only four by four feet permitting only one man at a time to work with hand pick or jackhammer. As one man bored through the coal, another behind him shoveled it out.
Shutack said rescuers used air drills, handpicks and a small jackhammer to enlarge a six inch hole though which they were speaking with Adley, and passing food to him.
While efforts continued to free Adley hope waned for the survival of the other seven.
State and federal officials in an attempt to locate the others placed a seismic device on a hillside over the general area of the accident.
“This is picking up all noises,” Shutack said. “Miners know that if they are trapped they are supposed to give three taps with a piece of coal. If they, the seven rap the device will pick it up.
Federal mine safety officials and a giant drill being brought from Salt Lake City by three Air Force C130 transport planes will be used to drill down to where the seven are believed trapped. It was not known when the drill will arrive.
Shutack said much of the water that inundated the mine had trained away and rescuers have encountered depths of only about four feet.
Walter Vincinelli, commissioner of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mine Safety, said there still is hope for the missing men.
“They’re making progress,” the tall, low-voiced commissioner of deep mine safety for Pennsylvania said Thursday night at the foot of Porter Tunnel leading into the mine.
Vincinelli is more than a figure head in the search. He is a participant — going into Porter for progress reports and to talk with Adley firsthand.
His calm voice behind a grimy exterior takes on a bit of an edge when he is asked again and again whether the seven missing miners have a chance to survive.
“We never give up hope,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can. We still have hope until every man is accounted for.
“You know, when this accident happened, the press said there wasn’t any hope — that all those trapped were dead. But then the next day we heard a voice. So there’s still a chance.”
Rescue workers still are trying to locate the missing miners, but most attention for the moment was on the effort to break down a 50-foot wall of coal and timber to get to Adley.
Estimates of the rate of progress differed. Federal officials said the rescue workers were digging through at the rate of one and one-half feet per hour. Vincinelli thought otherwise.
“We’re only going about a foot an hour,” Vincinelli said. “It may take 33 more hours to Friday midnight, but we hope to speed it up.”
State Mine Inspector Clarence Miller, who last visited the mine January 18 [1977] said the area was dangerous because of water-filled uncharted abandoned mines, but this is a common hazard all over the coal region and no reason to halt operations. “You would have to just shut down and forget about deep mining altogether,” he said.
“We knew there was water impounded in the mountain. It’s something we encounter almost every day where mining was done previously. All you can do is set up a drilling program,” Miller said.
He said he had ordered the mine foreman to keep drilling test holes at least 20 feet in advance of working areas. “The law requires drilling 20 feet ahead, but here in the Porter Tunnel, they drilled 36 to 60 feet,” Miller added. “This was the safest of any mine. I didn’t find anything wrong.”
“Since the inside working are at a higher level than the entrance, the normal underground water seepage flows out by gravity,” he said.
State Deep Mine Safety Commissioner Walter Vincinelli backed up Miller on the mine’s safety record pointing out that the operation never previously had a fatality.
Hank Throne, 42, who spent 14 days trapped underground in the independent mine drama at Sheppton in August 1963 showed up at the Porter Tunnel Thursday to encourage the trapped miner waiting rescue but officials turned thumbs down.
Throne said, “I thought I’d give him a pep talk to boost his morale, tell him you never give up hope, but they won’t let me talk to him,” said Throne. “I want to go in. I’m not afraid. I think a trapped man needs encouragement. State Police also stopped him from from talking to the miner’s relatives.
Throne, now a bartender in Hazleton was rescued along with David Fellin of Sheppton through a hole drilled into the mine from the surface. The body of a third miner, David Bova, was never recovered, and a tombstone marks the site as his grave. The Sheppton American Legion Post pays tribute there every Memorial Day.
Throne said he continued to work in the mines for six months after his rescue but another buddy was killed in an accident and Throne quit. “I decided it was safer to work and drink at a bar,” he said.
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From Newspapers.com.
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