Families of trapped miners continue to pray; rescue efforts suspended

Published: 2007-08-17

HUNTINGTON, Utah (CNS) -- The Catholic pastor of a mission church near the mine where six miners remained trapped said their families were "coping as well as they can amid the slow progress of rescue operations and their attempts to keep their hopes up that the miners are still alive." Father Donald E. Hope, a tall, lanky native of Ohio, has been meeting with miners' families every day since the Aug. 6 collapse at the Crandall Canyon Mine that stranded the miners. He is pastor of Notre Dame de Lourdes Parish in Price and three central Utah missions, including San Rafael Mission in Huntington, near the mine. "The families are meeting daily with mine officials, and sometimes those meetings have been very emotional," Father Hope told the Intermountain Catholic, newspaper of the Salt Lake City Diocese. He spoke to the Catholic paper before mine and rescue officials decided on the evening of Aug. 16 to suspend rescue efforts. The decision came shortly after another cave-in took the life of three rescue workers and injured six others. They had been trying to dig through rubble to try to reach the trapped miners. On Aug. 17 the head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said underground rescue efforts will be suspended indefinitely.

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