Breakdown halts mine rescue
Efforts to free nine men from a mine in the US have been halted after drilling gear broke.
Emergency workers were hoping to reach the group by making a rescue shaft but time is running out.
The men are cut off 300ft below the surface in the Pennsylvania mine after a tunnel they were working in flooded.
A giant drilling rig was being used to create a 30-inch wide rescue tunnel straight down through hundreds of feet of rock.
But the equipment broke down with the tunnel still at least 150ft away from the stranded men.
The miners are trapped in a chamber just over four feet high and 18ft wide, with water all around them.
They had accidentally drilled into an abandoned mine and released millions of gallons of water into their own shaft at the Que Creek mine in Somerset County.
New equipment is being flown in but workers need to retrieve the broken drill before they can resume the operation.
The delay raises fears that surviving miners could succumb to hypothermia in water and air temperatures as cold as 11C.
A number of makeshift pumping stations have managed to reverse the tide of rising ground water by about one foot an hour.
Pennsylvania Governor Mark Schweiker said: "It's fifty-fifty, the likelihood of success. It puts you in a very prayerful mood."
Families of the trapped men were taken to the site to witness the rescue operations and teams are continuing to monitor underground noises.
