SCRANTON, Pa. -- An electrician and a 35-ton crane plunged into a 288-foot abandoned mine shaft more than half filled with water Friday and rescue workers planned to search all night for the man but feared he was dead.
With floodlights illuminating the area around the 80-foot-wide, funnel-shaped hole in downtown Scranton, workers used backhoes and end-loaders to dig out the area around the pit to determine if any old tunnels adjoining the mine would give them better access to the main shaft.
The missing worker, Gerald White, of Laflin, Pa., was standing about 30 feet from the crane when the ground above the mine shaft, unused since the 1930s, gave way.
Officials said the crane operator, who was not manning the vehicle when the earth collapsed, had been using a wrecking ball to break a concrete seal placed over the shaft years ago. Once the seal was removed, workers were to have filled in the shaft to prevent such a collapse from occurring.
The 80-foot-tall crane appeared to be wedged about 50 or 60 feet from the surface.
Officials said all but 100 feet of the pit was filled with water, but that there was a slim chance White had landed in an air pocket and was alive.
'As long as there is one chance in a million, we'll keep trying,' said John Grow, an assitant to Mayor James McNulty. However, asked if he believed White was still alive, McNulty said, 'No.'
White, 32, was working near the crane owned by Empire Contracting Co. when the ground gave way and he fell into the gaping hole. The crane operator managed to jump to safety.
One of his co-workers grabbed his belt in an attempt to save him but was forced to let go to save himself after more ground collapsed, police said.
'The hole is so deep we don't know where the man is or whether he's still alive,' said Deputy Police Chief Frank Karam. 'We're concerned about further cave-ins.'
Two miners in a cage were lowered to the water level 100 feet into the pit and decided it was too narrow to attempt to reach White that way, Grow said.
He said rescue workers would try to reach a second mine shaft that led to the open pit. Workers were digging about 80 yards away from the site of the accident.
One witness said workers who had been hired to fill in the abandoned mine shaft were using the crane's wrecking ball to break up the pavement to get to the shaft when the cave-in occurred.
White was '25 to 30 feet away when the cave broke in and he dropped out of sight,' said the witness, who asked not to be identified.
'Everything went right in,' he said. 'We were lucky we all didn't go in. The crane operator jumped out. I thought he was going to go in too. I screamed and everybody ran. They ran to save themselves.'
