They should be getting paid more than $27/hr for that shit. I think they need to come up with a machine-rescuer so that there are no more rescuer casualties.

I don't think I'd work there for any amount of money. When those sides explode in the "mountain bumps" it shoots fragments of rock out as shrapnel at amazing speeds. It's like getting shot by a shotgun I'd think (if they're small projectiles, cannon if they're large).

People work in equally dangerous professions elsewhere for less, they knew the risks when they took the job. /shrug

I wouldn't trust a preprogrammed robot to dig me out, wireless controls would reach their limits fairly quickly without humans placing relays in the mine shaft, and wired controls would have a host of problems within the mine shaft as well. It honestly isn't really feasible from a business standpoint, especially with how rare mine collapses are in the first place.

It'd likely be cheaper to pay for the labor and possible death benefits, from a purely business standpoint.

Are you sure the rescue efforts are suspended? I doubt they would stop the drilling because of this. I could understand them stopping the rescue efforts IN the mine, like people going in and digging.

I believe I read they will keep drilling, but no more rescue digging

They sure as hell better not go back to digging.

Really, when you're trying to rescue 6 guys that probably didn't survive the cave in and almost surely haven't survived all this time, and 3 rescuers get killed with 8 injured, I think that means it's time to stop.

Some guys got killed in a hole they dug because they weakened the land overhead too much. The obvious solution is to go dig them out. :rolleyes:

They pretty much underminded the entire granite mountain/hillside and it's sitting down on them =(. Miners normally go through relatively soft coal ...I think some of this they're going through is granite which is much much harder.

I don't know why they ever bothered trying to dig their way in. Drilling is much more practical.

Not really. If different compartments are blocked off it's going to take many weeks to drill to each of them if not months (if they can get to all of them or they don't bring in more drills). If the stability were there they could probably have been most of the way through with their mining. But the conditions just aren't good enough.