Here’s a link to more information. Yesterday morning about 6:30, there was a thunderstorm, then an explosion in a mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia. Thirteen miners have been trapped. Rescue efforts were delayed because of explosive gasses. They’re now trying to drill an air hole down to the miners.
The mine has been cited over 200 times for safety violations in 2005; however, a coal company official has just been on television. He’s been paraphrased as saying “the number of violations was not unusual for a mine that size.” The quote is what the local television station reported him saying, not his exact words. However, in 2004, they only had 68 citations.
I was talking about giving up this message board as part of a New Year’s resolution. I won’t for now, and I’ll keep you posted if anyone’s interested. I’ll also be saying a few prayers, but then again, I suspect a lot of people are praying. It’s not like I can do anything else.
As of 7:30 ET things aren’t looking too great. The drillhole went through and a camera was put down. Although the machinery that would be damaged in an explosion wasn’t visibly damaged, there was no sign of the miners.
MSNBC reported that 18 of the violations are big ones…ones that would probably result in physical harm coming to the miners. If that’s true, they’re screwed.
On the other hand, China’s mines account for 80% of the mining deaths worldwide (something like 5K last year compared to our 22). It looks like we’ve made some major progress in recent decades, but it’s still an awful situation. They said the air quality is three times worse than the quality of air that would kill miners within 15 minutes.
Wow! This is such uplifting news! I too had been expecting to hear that all of them were dead. It will be wonderful when we get to hear from the men themselves about how they managed to survive.
How crushing for the one family that lost their loved one, though. I’m sure they’re wondering why he had to be the one who didn’t make it, and I imagine the celebration of the survivors must be painful to watch. It seems like the people in that community are very close knit, so hopefully they will find a lot of support and consolation.
Blessed Be! I am so glad to hear that there is some good news. I was afraid that all of those men would be lost.
My thoughts are with the family of the man who was lost.
I hope the company pays out the ying-yang for the infractions that caused this. As much as fuel is costing the average person - isn’t there some way this money can trickle down into safety?
[size -1]I’m not going to make a political statement here. And it is taking a lot of effort not to.[/size]
Now CNN is reporting that only one miner survived.
That is absolutely horrible. I can’t imagine how the families must feel now. How could they have been so incredibly wrong!?!?!
Yeah, I was watching Anderson Cooper talk about how amazing it was and this Redhead poped in and started talking to him off the camera. Every major news network switched right to Anderson. Now they are all saying 11 dead. Pretty tragic.
