Spokesman: Rescuers close to miners

RENO -- Rescuers were closing in Friday on two miners believed to have been killed in a Nevada gold mine where a pipe had broken loose from a wall and severely damaged a cage that was lowering the pair into a shaft on Thursday.

Crews were close to the men inside the Meikle mine in northern Nevada, said Lou Schack, a spokesman for Barrick Gold of North America.

The vertical pipe, about 2 feet in diameter, runs the length of the 1,330-foot-deep shaft and is used to carry crushed stone and rocks, Schack said.

"The men are near the bottom of the shaft," Schack said late Friday afternoon. "It's a slow process and we're patiently working through it and hope to have a resolution soon."