911 Calls Report Mine Event

The first 911 call reporting the Crandall Canyon (Utah) mine disaster came from the director of a university seismograph station, 59 minutes before anyone at the mine itself called for help. The Emery County Sheriff’s Office released logging tapes of the calls that showed Walter Arabasz called from the University of Utah at 2:48 a.m. to report a 4.0 seismic event on Aug. 6th that, “looks like it might be a coal mining-related event,” he told the dispatcher. During the two-minute call he asked if any incidents had been reported, but the dispatchers had received none. The cave-in was then reported at 3:37 a.m. by a mine worker, who only asked for an ambulance. Six miners were lost behind a wall of rock an coal and have not been rescued. There is debate whether the cave-in was caused by a seismic event, or simply registered as one because of its huge size.