MONTCOAL, West Virginia – Rescue crews fought to move heavy drills to reach four missing miners yesterday at a West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 25 others in the deadliest US mining disaster in decades.
Initial search crews reported damage so severe at the Upper Big Branch Mine after Monday’s explosion that train rails “looked like they had been twisted like a pretzel”, said governor Joe Manchin.
It had to be a horrific explosion to cause that kind of damage.”
Crews planned to drill four holes into the mine in Montcoal, owned by Massey Energy, Mr Manchin said. Drilling may not begin until today as the rigs are not yet in place and an access road must be ploughed.
Efforts were hampered by the build-up of methane gas and smoke underground, posing a danger that forced the earlier teams back from the search area. “It’s a slow process,” Mr Manchin said. Three of the holes were for ventilation, and rescuers were targeting an area some 1,100ft (335m) below the surface, he said.
Miners’ families remained hopeful, the governor said.“We are hoping that we can still, by a miracle, recover some miners.”
Massey said on its website that its accident rate had fallen to an all-time low in 2009, which was the sixth consecutive year its safety record was stronger than the industry average.
But according to federal records, the Upper Big Branch Mine has had three fatalities since 1998 and has a worse than average injury rate over the last 10 years. Two miners died in roof collapses in 1998 and 2001, and a third was electrocuted in 2003.
Kevin Stricklin of the US Mine and Safety Health Administration said: “Something went very wrong here for us to have the magnitude of this explosion. We’ll leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom and tell you exactly what was not going right here,” he said.
Mr Manchin said 18 miners remained inside the Upper Big Branch Mine, and 14 of them were dead: “We don’t know the fate of four.”
Michelle McKenney, daughter of Benny Willingham, who was among those killed, said she was angry at Massey: “No one from Massey has called my mother or any of us children or his mother. He still has a mother that is home grieving.”
The federal government was ready to assist in the rescue operation, President Barack Obama said at a White House gathering of religious leaders.
“Pray for the safe return for the missing, the men and women who’ve put their lives on the line to save them, and the souls of those who’ve been lost in this tragic accident,” he said.
The mine, owned by Massey’s Performance Coal subsidiary, has two emergency chambers stocked with food, water and enough air to survive for four days. Rescuers hoped the missing miners had made their way there.
Ellen Smith, editor of Mine Safety and Health News, said the mine had been repeatedly cited for safety violations going back years.
The death toll makes this the deadliest US mining disaster since 1984, when 27 miners died in a fire in Utah, according to the United States Mine Rescue Association.
The Montcoal disaster occurred just as China was celebrating the rescue of more than 100 miners from a flooded coal mine.
The miners endured more than a week underground. Five miners died in the Chinese mine in Xiangning, in the northern province of Shanxi, and 33 were still missing.
In the worst coal mine disaster in US history, 362 miners died in 1906 in West Virginia’s Monongah mine. – (Reuters)