At the top of their list are refuge chambers, alternative fresh airways, wireless communication systems and personal electronic tracking devices that would let rescuers pinpoint locations of trapped miners.

The Mine Improvement and Emergency Response Act signed into law by President Bush in June 2006 calls for a study of safety chambers and gives companies until 2009 to set up the other systems.

"It needs to be now," said Wanda Blevins, whose husband David died after an explosion at the Jim Walters Resources Blue Creek No. 5 mine in 2001. "You can not tell me you can put a man on the moon and you can't locate a man underground. These miners don't have time. We need an emergency passage of [these provisions of the bill] now."

Patricia Campbell of West Virginia, whose brother-in-law Marty Bennett died in the 2006 Sago mine explosion, said refuge chambers are already in use in Australia.

Such chambers would help "miners live if accidents like this happen," Campbell said. She also said personal tracking devices should be immediately adopted.

A Congressional Budget Office report estimated the wireless communication and tracking systems would costs about $100,000 per mine, a figure some experts said was too low.

According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, no wireless communication systems are currently available that are approved for use in underground mines.

But a report commissioned by West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin last summer said an Australian manufacturer makes a one-way wireless communication system and tracker unit the size of a small cell phone that are in "widespread" use in that country.

The report said the technology also has been used in the U.S. by several companies, including at the Willow Creek mine in Helper, Utah. In 2000, the mine relied on the pagers to alert and safely evacuate workers during a series of explosions that killed two men and injured eight others.

The Crandall Canyon mine had a redundant hard-wire communication system, according to MSHA, but both systems were "apparently damaged from the force of the accident" - something that also happened at the Sago mine disaster.

MSHA said each miner at Crandall Canyon had access to at least two self-rescuer air canisters, each of which provides an hour supply of oxygen.

MSHA approved an emergency response plan for Crandall Canyon mine on June 13 that met provisions of the 2006 act. All but one aspect of the plan - the breathable air supply - was to be implemented immediately.

The company's plan, among other things, calls for self-rescuer air canisters to be placed in caches less than 5,700 feet apart and escape lifelines to guide miners to the surface.

The company said it would install the items "immediately upon receipt of the material and self-rescuers." MSHA's Richard Stickler said Wednesday that the mine was in compliance with the applicable requirements.

Regulators gave the company until Aug. 13 to implement the breathable air system, which includes barricaded safe havens and air purging equipment capable of providing breathable air for 18 miners for four days.

Inspectors last conducted a routine inspection at the mine on July 18.