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Blast Traps 13 Miners -- 2 Miles Inside; Oxygen Risk Hampers Rescue Team in W.Va.

Posted on: Wednesday, 4 January 2006, 12:00 CST

By From Our Press Services

TALLMANSVILLE, W.Va. - Rescue workers hampered by debris and pockets of deadly carbon monoxide struggled through the night Monday to reach 13 coal miners trapped two miles inside a mine by a powerful shaft explosion.

Public safety officials said late Monday they have had no communications with any of the entombed miners after an early morning explosion caved in a section of the Sago Mine about 260 feet below the surface. The mine shaft is drilled on a slant and the miners could have been as far as two miles along the tunnel.

The blast occurred amid raging thunderstorms and the mine's owners speculated that lightning might be the cause - though government officials said they were not certain about the explosion's origin.

"There was some type of explosion either heard or felt by the miners attempting to go in the mine for a shift change," said Lara Ramsburg, spokeswoman for Gov. Joe Manchin. "They then backtracked out."

Four co-workers tried to reach the trapped miners but stopped because of contaminated air, and the blast knocked out the mine's communication equipment. By nightfall, a search team had begun to move cautiously on foot down the darkened shaft where the miners were believed caught by a cave-in. The searchers were slowed, officials said, by concerns about air quality and efforts to ensure adequate oxygen.

The team had to wait nearly 12 hours while officials vented the area above the cave-in site to release toxic carbon monoxide that had built up in the shaft after the explosion.

Other rescue teams prepared to drill deeper holes to test air quality beneath the surface and lower a listening device to scan for any sounds of life. Federal mine safety officials also rushed a rescue robot to the cave-in site, in a hilly area about 100 miles northeast of Charleston.

"So far, we've got no communication," said Terry Farley, an administrator with West Virginia's Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training.

More than 250 relatives and friends of the missing miners gathered a half-mile from the mine at the white clapboard Sago Baptist Church. Officials brought in cots and blankets and neighbors streamed in with food trays and urns of coffee and hot chocolate. But the largesse did little to ease the dread.

"It's everybody's worst fear," said Linda Feola, a Red Cross volunteer who lives five miles away. "Most of these folks won't go to bed. They're going on adrenaline until they get word about their loved ones."

Officials and relatives said the trapped men ranged from the 20s to the 50s; some had worked in the mines as long as three decades, others had only been at it for a few years. When the blast occurred, the men were carrying only their lunches and air purifying gear that would provide a limited supply of air.

"There's always that hope and chance that they were able to go to part of the mine that still had safe air," said West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin.

"We're waiting for any inkling of hope for them to get out," said Lila Muncy, who said her brother, Randall McCoy, 27, was one of the trapped miners.

McCoy had begun working three years ago as a mine "bolter" - paid to prop up mineshaft roof supports.

"Leery" about the perils of his job, Muncy said, McCoy never left the house for his shift each morning without telling his wife: "God bless you."

The trapped miners were among the first group of the day shift to enter the mine after it had been closed for the New Year's weekend.

The mine had been successfully inspected before the crew descended, said officials from the International Coal Group, a company that took over the mine in late November after acquiring the firm last March.

ICG bought the mine from Anker West Virginia Mining Co., which had been in bankruptcy. In recent years, the mine has been repeatedly cited for safety violations by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. During an 11-week review period that lasted from October through December, MSHA inspectors cited the mine for 46 alleged violations of mine health and safety rules.

The more serious alleged violations, resulting in proposed penalties of at least $250 each, involved steps for safeguarding against roof falls, and the mine's plan to control methane and breathable dust. The mine received 208 citations from MSHA during 2005, up from 68 citations in 2004.

Coal mine explosions are often caused by buildups of methane gas, but it was uncertain whether methane was at fault Monday. Dangers grow in the winter, when the barometric pressure forces the release of the odorless, flammable gas.

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"It's everybody's worst fear. Most of these folks won't go to bed."

Linda Feola, a Red Cross volunteer working with relatives and neighbors awaiting word on the fate of the entombed miners in West Virginia

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Dangerous work

A look at U.S. coal mining disasters in recent years:

2001: Explosions at a Jim Walter Resources Inc. mine in Brookwood, Ala., kill 13.

1992: Southmountain Coal Co. mine blast in Norton, Va., kills eight.

1989: An explosion at a Pyro Mining Co. mine in Wheatcroft, Ky., kills 10.

1984: A fire at Emery Mining Corp.'s mine in Orangeville, Utah, kills 27.

Deadliest U.S. coal mining disaster was an explosion in 1907 in Monongah, W.Va., that killed 362 people.

Sources: Associated Press and Mine Safety and Health Administration.

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Source: Commercial Appeal, The

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