Like a School Shooting, Momentary Outrage, Then Silence
Many Pressures Led to Cave-In
Critics Cite Economics, Lax Safety Rules in Utah Mine Disaster
By Karl Vick and Sonya Geis
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, August 20, 2007; A01
HUNTINGTON, Utah, Aug. 19 -- In the small hours of Aug. 6, before the mountain came down around six men working to hollow it out, immense forces were concentrated on the far reaches of the Crandall Canyon coal mine. Not all of them came from within the groaning mountain.
Gravity in crushing concert with geology was the immediate problem. For years, miners had ground huge gouges out of the mountain, progressing horizontally a foot at a time. Pressing down on them was a mass of rock extending up more than a third of a mile.
The other pressure was economic. The coal that rattles on conveyor belts out of the hillsides of east-central Utah sold for 50 percent more last year than five years earlier. In Crandall Canyon, the section the mine crew was working Aug. 6 had already been harvested and abandoned by a previous own…