Spare The Pickax, Spoil The Survivor

I heard on NPR this morning that rescue efforts at the coal mine in Huntington, UT are slowly grinding to a halt, as there continues to be less and less evidence that the miners could have found a place with sufficient oxygen to survive for more than a few hours. The second cave-in late last week indicates that rescue efforts which would include actually drilling into the mine again are unsafe and unlikely to happen, and it appears likely that they are lost forever.

My heart goes out to the families of the survivors, especially in light of the fact that it seems almost guaranteed to me that the mine was not taking every imaginable precaution to protect these men working almost 2000 feet below the surface. It's especially galling to me that the major media outlets have simply let the mine's owner control the tone of the debate, reporting disagreements like whether or not the miners were doing 'retreat mining', wherein you actually plan on collapsing the mine behind you as you go, as they-said-he-said matters.

However, when I hear that the survivors are insistent that, even once the miners are given up for dead, rescue efforts continue, at any cost and with the continued risk of life and limb of the rescue workers, because they want to get out the bodies and hold proper burials, my sympathies run out. Let me get this straight...we need to spend millions to dig those bodies up out of the ground so that we can...bury them...in...the ground?