QUECREEK, Pa. - Nine miners remained trapped last night along a narrow seam of coal as rescue workers sought to drill through about 250 feet of solid rock to save them from millions of gallons of water rushing in from an adjacent and long-abandoned mine.

State officials said they believe one or more of the men, trapped since about 9 p.m. Wednesday, were alive as of yesterday, because rescue workers who drilled a 6-inch-wide hole and inserted an air pipe down to the miners tapped on it several times and received the same number of taps from below.

But even if the miners have survived the onslaught of coursing water - neck-high according to nine co-workers who managed to wade to safety - they still face a potentially deadly threat: hypothermia. Air and water temperatures in the mine are about 50 to 60 degrees, which, particularly if the men are soaking wet, would make survival difficult after several hours, a medical official said.

Last night, in this traditional mining area about 55 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, rescue workers began drilling a 3-foot-wide hole through which they hope to pull the men out. But it could take at least until late morning today to drill down to the men, who were believed to be huddled in a pitch-black chamber no more than 5 feet high.

"It's probably wet, cold and dark," said a grim Joseph Sbaffoni, a state mine safety official. "Their cap lights are probably out.

"Coal miners are a special breed," he said. "If anyone can get through it, a coal miner can."

Crews spent much of yesterday working furiously to pump water out of the mine, the spewing geysers the most visible sign above ground of the perils deep below. Officials said they believe they've created an air pocket for the trapped miners and are using sensitive seismic equipment to detect signs of life.

Meanwhile, an air of desperation seemed to shroud the area as thickly as the fog that cloaks this mountainous region. Many here know the trapped miners - or if not, they know the dangers of the work because their fathers and grandfathers have also done their time in one mine or another over the years.

"I buried an awful lot of my family, I buried an awful lot of her family," said Stephen Walker as he and his wife, Christian, watched the rescue efforts from a nearby hill. "They all worked in the mines."

Christian Walker's cousin is one of the trapped miners, but she declined to give his name. State and local officials similarly have refused to identify the miners, and have kept their immediate relatives, about 150 of them, sequestered in a nearby firehouse. Some were brought to the mine yesterday so they could see what crews were doing to rescue the men.

In areas such as this, people are accustomed to the slower ways that the mines have killed miners - the emphysema, cancer, black lung disease and the like that have killed the Walkers' relatives over the years. Then there are the maimings - the arm cut off by machinery, the head injuries from falling chunks of coal.

It's why, Stephen Walker said, his grandfather forbade him from following him into the shafts as previous men of his family have done, and he instead became a carpenter.

Still, when this particular site, which was being mined by the Black Wolf Coal Co. of Friedens, Pa., began operations - it received a permit in 1999 - workers once again hired on.

"You have to weigh the danger of crawling around in a 3-foot space, and feeding your family and paying the mortgage," Christian Walker said. "You have to make your choice."

She could only shake her head as she added, "He's got a wife and two kids."

Warning saves nine

The trapped men were among 18 who entered the mine on Wednesday. They were shuttled about a mile into the mine and split into two groups working in separate areas. One group saw water flooding in and radioed the other men a warning. That ultimately saved the lives of the second group. They were able to wade through the rising waters and out of the mine, but their co-workers became trapped.

The workers apparently breached a wall separating their mine from the abandoned Saxman mine which, since its closing in the early 1960s, had filled up with an estimated 50 million gallons of water. Emergency officials were alerted to the mine accident late Wednesday and have been working to free the miners since then.

Rescue comes first

David Hess, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said state law requires that new mines be separated from abandoned ones by at least 200 feet of solid rock. Surveys and maps indicated that there was sufficient separation between the two mines, and the state in 1999 approved a permit allowing the new mining operation. Hess said officials plan to investigate the discrepancy.

The immediate goal was to rescue the trapped miners.

"The paramount step now is to get down there, make the arrangements and get them back up here," said an emotional Gov. Mark Schweiker. "What's striking is, there you are, 300 feet above this cavern of sorts ... and that drill is as wide as it is, represents their opportunity to live, and you realize that assembly of metal and these people and their insights is what's going to do it."

The narrow streets here frequently were blocked yesterday as police cars escorted trucks hauling special equipment to the site - pumps to drain water, hyperbaric chambers that might be needed if miners are pulled up through a pressurized atmosphere, and, in midafternoon, a huge drill from West Virginia. That would be used to make the 36-inch-wide, 250-foot-deep hole through which a rescue cage would be dropped to lift survivors to the surface.

Many prayers

"I just pray for the souls of the miners," Joann Cyga said with a sigh.

From the porch of her home here, she said she feels for the women awaiting their husbands' return. Her husband, Chester, worked for the Saxman mine, the one abandoned and the source of the water coursing into the adjacent Quecreek mine. He now works with the fire department, and has been at the site trying to help with the rescue.

"At one time, if you didn't work in the mines, you didn't live here," she said of her neighborhood, where the houses were built by the mine company for its workers. For her, the dangers of mining are as close as a neighboring house that she points to: "He was killed in the mines."

For all her familiarity with mine tragedies, though, this one still stuns.

"You thought of cave-ins, or explosions," she said. "You never thought of water."

And yet, she and others speak of the mines with a certain inevitability.

"Most of the people here originally worked in the mines," said Glenn Fisher, who owns a sporting goods business and whose father and uncle were miners. "That's what this town was built for. Coal built it. But I'm still glad I never got into it."