President: Hopes dwindling for missing Polish miners
High levels of gas forced rescuers to suspend their search for 15 miners missing more than a half a mile underground today, and the Polish president said conditions were “getting worse” for anyone trapped and still alive.
Anxious family members prayed at the shrine of St. Barbara, the patroness of miners, at the Halemba mine near Ruda Slaska, in southern Poland, where a methane explosion yesterday killed eight coal miners and left the others missing.
Three young women lit candles in front of the shrine, then knelt down, clasped their hands and prayed. Others sobbed.
“The situation is getting worse down there and there are no rescue teams there. We cannot exclude that there is still a fire burning at the site and that increases the danger of another explosion,” President Lech Kaczynski said after surveying the site.
“Although one can never lose hope and has to fight to the very end, the situation is very bad.”
Some 900 feet of rubble remains between the miners and where rescue workers have reached.
Locator devices carried by the missing miners have been emitting no signals, and there have been no other signs that they are still alive.
