Rescue efforts continuing nonstop

By 11 p.m. ET, workers boring an escape hole had managed to progress 100 feet down, said Joseph Sbaffoni with the Bureau of Deep Mine Safety.

Only five hours earlier, crews began drilling with a large drill trucked in from West Virginia. The drill is allowing the workers to create a hole about 3 feet around that could be used as a pathway to get the men out.

Rescue workers also drilled smaller holes down to the mine shaft and inserted pumps in an effort to combat rising water levels and create airways.

By early Friday, the effort appeared to be paying dividends.

A Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection source told CNN progress had been made as water levels had stopped rising in the mine and were going down.

Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Schweiker on Thursday night said crews "are working feverishly" and making "good" progress in their attempt to rescue the miners.

He told reporters a "sophisticated basket" is being made to drop down an escape hole now being drilled, and it could reach the miners early Friday morning.

"We believe it's going well," Schweiker said. "We are bringing to bear every piece of equipment to see that it goes well and goes rapidly."

Schweiker said he visited anxious family members who waited at the nearby Sipesville Volunteer Fire Department Hall for their loved ones to emerge from the dark. The mine is several miles from the site of the September 11 crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in the Shanksville area.

"It's a tough time for them" and they are in a "fragile" state, Schweiker said. "But I sense they are optimistic and are ever so hopeful that all that has been assembled in terms of emergency response and in terms of mechanical equipment will help bring about the rescue of their loved ones."

Mike Fogle, a brother of one of the trapped miners, told CNN in an exclusive interview early Friday that those awaiting rescue are "the best men I've ever worked with." (Full story)

The nine men have been trapped in the Quecreek Mine since Wednesday night, when they accidentally drilled too close to a water-filled older, abandoned mine. The wall between the two mines collapsed as millions of gallons of water flowed into the new mine. Another crew of miners managed to flee to safety.

Officials said the miners are crammed in an area about 3 feet high and 12 feet wide.

This is a critical phase in the effort to rescue the men as the threat of hypothermia grows the longer they are trapped in what's estimated to be 55-degree water. Under those conditions, hypothermia begins to set in after 48 hours or by late Friday.