Rain Foils Mine Camera Drop

An 8-inch robotic camera’s descent down a 1,415-foot borehole in the collapsed Crandall Canyon Mine was cut short yesterday by several hours of steady rain, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. The weather blocked positioning of equipment needed to drop the camera, as well as preparations for a seventh borehole, in the search for the miners who have now been trapped for more than two weeks.

But a preliminary try indicated that the high-tech effort to glean information about the mine’s interior should work when conditions improve, according to a lawyer for several miners’ families. Rescue workers will try again to sink the camera into borehole No. 3 at the far back end of the mine, which is believed to have had the most intact. (More Utah stories.)