Coal Mine Collapse Kills 2 in W. Virginia
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Two members of a coal mining crew removing pillars in a mine died Saturday when a portion of the tunnel collapsed and the men were buried in debris deep underground, authorities said.
None of the other miners in the 35-member crew was injured, said Ted Pile, spokesman for Alpha Natural Resources, whose subsidiary, Brooks Run Mining, operates the mine about 90 miles west of Roanoke, Va.
Pile said the crew was engaged in retreat mining in which the miners work back toward the entrance extracting coal from the pillars that support the ceiling.
Dispatchers said the accident occurred up to 1.5 miles from the mine’s entrance.
Ron Wooten, the state’s mine safety director, said whether a pillar or portion of the ceiling collapsed remained unclear.
“There’s no need for rescue teams; the individuals have been recovered,” he said.
Wooten said the bodies were taken to a hospital about 11 miles away in Welch.
The mine was closed following the fatal accident and will remain closed until regulators allow it to reopen, Pile said.
State and federal mine safety investigators were on the scene.
Richard Stickler, director of the federal Mine Safety & Health Administration, said the agency was “saddened by the tragic accident” and would work closely with the state to find out the cause.
The fatalities were among the first at the Brooks Run mine, which has 118 employees and began operating in 2004 under the Alpha mining company, based in Abingdon, Va.
Federal inspectors cited the Brooks Run mine 65 times last year and proposed penalties totaling $5,000, according to the federal agency’s Web site.
The deaths are the first in West Virginia’s coal mines this year and the second and third in the nation. A miner was killed Jan. 6 at a Colorado mine, according to MSHA.
Last year, 47 miners — 24 of them from West Virginia — died in the nation’s coal mines, the highest toll since 1995.
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