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Posted: 6:40 PM- A sixth borehole being drilled into the Crandall Canyon mine in search of six trapped men has broken through to a tunnel filled to the top with rubble.
Mine Safety and Health Administration officials said only that the borehole reached the mine before 5 p.m. Colin King, an attorney representing a majority of the trapped miners' families, said the families were told the tunnel was filled to the top with rubble. The borehole had targeted the area where the miners were working when a catastrophic collapse of the mine's walls occurred during the graveyard shift on Aug. 6.
"I don't think I have to say what their reaction was," King said of the families' response to the news, which virtually guarantees their loved ones have not survived.
Mine co-owner Bob Murray has said the sixth borehole will be the last if it yields no sign of the miners. Mine officials left the meeting with the family without comment to media waiting outside. A news conference has been scheduled for Sunday afternoon.
Previous boreholes were aimed in areas rescuers thought the miners could have fled - and survived with breathable air. But cameras and microphones lowered down the boreholes showed no sign of the missing men: Brandon Phillips, Luis Alonso Hernandez, Don Erickson, Juan Carlos Payan, Kerry Allred and Manuel Sanchez.
The families of the miners have urged officials not to give up on the men, and say they must be recovered from the mine - dead or alive.