While looking in a five year old issue of Sports Illustrated, it claimed more people have been killed in mine accidents in West Virginia than in all our country’s wars combined. Since the number of American war fatalities is usually given as about one million, that seems exaggerated. Is this true? Where did this number come from?
Nationwide, 127,000 Americans have died in coal mining disasters according to http://www.geocities.com/coalminermem/ That’s more than I would have guessed, but nowhwere near the number of US combat deaths of WWII alone.
For estimates of deaths in various wars, see United States military casualties of war - Wikipedia
Seems highly improbable, especially if this site is to be believed and your figure of 1 million US war dead is approximately correct.
I have no idea where that number came from, but the single highest fatality count from a coal mine accident in West Virginia in recorded U.S. history is 362 and that occurred in Monongah, West Virginia in 1907.
http://www.msha.gov/mshainfo/factsheets/mshafct8.htm
Remember that there are coal mines in many other states as well.
I haven’t added up all those numbers, but they look way short of one million.
And now I see that PaulParkhead were in agreement
On review, I see the OP said mine accidents, not specifically coal mine accidents. Offhand, I can’t think of any other type of mining in WV that would significantly increase the total.
If the article meant all mining-related deaths, then they’re at least a little closer. According to http://www.co.greene.pa.us/secured/gc/services/miners.htm 100,000 miners have died of black lung nationwide.
Maybe the article meant to say that more West Virginians had died in mining accidents than had died in combat.
Maybe they’re including canaries?
I grew up in West Virginia schools, and this is exactly what I was taught. More WEST VIRGINIANS have died in mine accidents than have WEST VIRGINIANS who died in combat in all of the U.S. wars…
Whether that is true or not, it was repeated in school…
Uh, like, why is Sports Illustrated covering mining disasters?