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Posted: 3:30 PM- Efforts to reach six men trapped in the Crandall Canyon mine were renewed Sunday as federal mining officials said a seventh borehole will be drilled into the mine. A robotic camera will also be sent into a previously drilled area.

Robin Murphy, director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue at the University of South Florida, said a robotic camera has been designed specifically for the mine disaster. The camera, which can navigate some 1,000 feet once it reaches the mine, will feed real-time images of what it finds back to the surface.

Mine Safety and Health Administration officials are determining which borehole - the third or the fourth - to send the camera into, said Murphy.

Cesar Sanchez, brother of missing miner Manuel Sanchez, said earlier Sunday Murray Energy Vice President Rob Moore asked the families where they wanted to put the seventh borehole. The families agreed on the kitchen area where the miners store their lunches. The area is also designated as a place for miners to gather in case of emergency.

"They could be there right now waiting for us to get to them," said Cesar Sanchez Sunday. "It could be the miracle we're waiting for."

The robotic camera could reach the floor of the mine as early as this afternoon, said Colin King, an attorney representing a majority of the families of the missing miners.

"We're very excited about it," said King. "The families are thrilled to hear this."

Family members had expected to be told that efforts to locate their loved ones were coming to an end after a sixth borehole on Saturday revealed the tunnel where the miners were last known to be working was filled to the top with rubble. Officials had not expected to find conditions capable of sustaining life, but had hoped to find some sign of the miners.

Other boreholes, drilled in locations where the miners were thought to have possibly escaped to and survived produced images of caverns with enough room to move around and breathable air. But there has been no sign of miners Kerry Allred, Don Erickson, Luis Alonso Hernandez, Juan Carlos Payan, Brandon Phillips and Manuel Sanchez.

Miner Don Erickson's son, Brandon, called Sunday's decisions "a little flicker" of hope.

"Hopefully, they don't shoot me back down in a couple of days," he said. "I'm tired of being on the rollercoaster."

- Tribune photographer Leah Hogsten contributed to this report.