The steamer Ashford out of Brighton is more than 120 years old - which means that it has some interesting features for divers to enjoy, says John Liddiard.Illustration by Max Ellis
Call. i really don t know. all right. great. that s mike snelling who runs the surface operations for massey mines. this is some of the video now from one of the two drill sites where they re drilling in to not only take exhaust out the methane gas in there, but to also allow fresh air in so that rescue crews can go in. there you re seeing the exhaust that s pulling out the fan and the tube that s working pulling out that toxic methane gas out of this massey mine. they re using a rotary drill, going down. it s gone, snelling told the news crew, about 560 feet down. and it would be about another 12 hours, he says, before the drill hits the 1,100 foot mark which is where they think they need to be in order to clear the toxic gas and be able to send rescuers in there. that s a look at where they re drilling right now, hoping to clear enough of the problem gas out so that then they can allow rescue crews to go back in. again, four miners still missing
October 2005 memo to mine superintendents in which blankenship told them to ignore orders to do anything but run coal. we seem not to understand that coal pays the bills. blankenship said the memo was taken out of context. in 2006, two miners died in a fire at a massey mine. the company was hit with the largest financial settlement in the history of the coal industry for willingfully violating safety standards. lisa myers reporting there. wooers just getting a new press poll video. this is the chief operating officer of massey energy. he s been taken to mike snelling, the vp of surface ops at the mine. let s listen. we have one drill currently in operation. that s drilled down about 560 feet. right next to that we have another drill hole that s already been drilled and in place. it s about 1,100 feet deep. the diameter of the hole is six inches.
quickly here. as for the company that runs this mine, massey energy, it has a lot of questions to answer. they have been cited numerous times for safety violations and this very mine has been shut down a couple of times in the last two months because of a build-up of methane gas. state officials say they re going to be looking at that very carefully. but right now this is about a rescue mission for four miners who might possibly have survived this deadly explosion. one thing that may have been overlooked in the search for these four missing miners is that two miners did survive. they were taken to the hospital. they re injured. do you know the status of their condition? reporter: we just got an update on them. one is doing very well. the other is said to be in the intensive care unit. what really bothers everyone here is that these rescue workers got within about 500 feet of where these four missing miners are believed to be. so they re worried about trying to get to them