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Were the Deaths of the 12 Coal Miners Preventable? A Look At the Sago Mine
Last year, the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration filed 200 alleged violations against the Sago mine. 46 citations were issued in the past three months - 18 of them were considered "serious and substantial." We speak with investigative reporter Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette (WV) who closely monitors the mining industry.
Yesterday morning, 12 of the 13 coal miners initially thought to have survived a mine explosion at Sago Mines in Central West Virginia, were pronounced dead. The explosion occurred on Monday morning in a sealed section of the mine, and trapped 13 miners 260 feet below the mine"s surface. Their immediate fate was unknown but by Tuesday night company officials announced they had found toxic levels of carbon monoxide in the area where the miners were thought to be. That night West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin acknowledged at a press conference that there was little hope there would be any survivors. Then late Tuesday night, the company that owns the mine, International Coal Group, announced that 12 of the miners had been found alive. Family members and friends who had gathered in a local church heard the news from the rescue command center and celebrated with cheering and singing for almost three hours. Many newspapers on the east coast ran headlines proclaiming the miners to be alive.
Then early Wednesday morning the CEO of ICG, Ben Hatfield, announced that actually only one miner, Randy McCloy, had survived the blast. After the announcement, chaos broke out at the Sago Baptist church and the devastated families grew increasingly angry after it emerged that mine officials had known within 45 minutes that original reports of the miners" survival might have been false, but they had waited to tell the families. A fight broke out inside the church and a mining company official had to be escorted away under police protection. These are family members speaking to reporters yesterday after they heard the news.
* Family members react to mine deaths
Also on Wednesday, the CEO of the International Coal Group, Ben Hatfield, gave a press conference and expressed regret that the families of the 12 dead miners were mistakenly led to believe for three hours that their loved ones were alive. He also tried to explain why the miscommunication happened.
* Ben Hatfield, the CEO of the International Coal Group
Monday's explosion at Sago mine is the state"s deadliest mining accident since 1968. Seventy-eight men, including the uncle of the current governor, died in that disaster. The tragedy propelled Congress to pass the historic Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969.
The deaths of the 12 miners this week at Sago mine highlighted ongoing safety problems. Last year alone Sago mine was cited for over 200 health and safety violations. Inspectors found 16 violations in the past 8 months that were listed as "unwarrantable failures."
Sago mine was forced to suspend operations 16 times in 2005 after failing to comply with safety rules. The violations found at Sago included mine roofs that collapsed without warning, faulty tunnel supports and a dangerous build-up of flammable coal dust. But the fines that the company were required to pay were extremely low, most of them $250 or $60 dollars.
Government documents also show a high rate of accidents at Sago. 42 workers and contractors have been injured in accidents since 2000 and the average number of working days lost because of accidents in the past five years was nearly double the national average for underground coal mines.
We are joined now by Ken Ward Jr., staff writer for West Virginia"s Charleston Gazette and investigative reporter who wrote an award-winning series of articles about coal-industry abuses in West Virginia, revealing that state regulators routinely ignore the law when they issue mountaintop removal permits. He continues to cover industry abuses for the Gazette.
We also invited ICG to be on the program but they did not return our calls.
* Ken Ward, staff writer for the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia. He wrote an award-winning series of articles for the paper about coal-industry abuses in West Virginia, revealing that state regulators routinely ignore the law when they issue mountaintop removal permits.
LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/05/1454250
Then early Wednesday morning the CEO of ICG, Ben Hatfield, announced that actually only one miner, Randy McCloy, had survived the blast. After the announcement, chaos broke out at the Sago Baptist church and the devastated families grew increasingly angry after it emerged that mine officials had known within 45 minutes that original reports of the miners" survival might have been false, but they had waited to tell the families. A fight broke out inside the church and a mining company official had to be escorted away under police protection. These are family members speaking to reporters yesterday after they heard the news.
* Family members react to mine deaths
Also on Wednesday, the CEO of the International Coal Group, Ben Hatfield, gave a press conference and expressed regret that the families of the 12 dead miners were mistakenly led to believe for three hours that their loved ones were alive. He also tried to explain why the miscommunication happened.
* Ben Hatfield, the CEO of the International Coal Group
Monday's explosion at Sago mine is the state"s deadliest mining accident since 1968. Seventy-eight men, including the uncle of the current governor, died in that disaster. The tragedy propelled Congress to pass the historic Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969.
The deaths of the 12 miners this week at Sago mine highlighted ongoing safety problems. Last year alone Sago mine was cited for over 200 health and safety violations. Inspectors found 16 violations in the past 8 months that were listed as "unwarrantable failures."
Sago mine was forced to suspend operations 16 times in 2005 after failing to comply with safety rules. The violations found at Sago included mine roofs that collapsed without warning, faulty tunnel supports and a dangerous build-up of flammable coal dust. But the fines that the company were required to pay were extremely low, most of them $250 or $60 dollars.
Government documents also show a high rate of accidents at Sago. 42 workers and contractors have been injured in accidents since 2000 and the average number of working days lost because of accidents in the past five years was nearly double the national average for underground coal mines.
We are joined now by Ken Ward Jr., staff writer for West Virginia"s Charleston Gazette and investigative reporter who wrote an award-winning series of articles about coal-industry abuses in West Virginia, revealing that state regulators routinely ignore the law when they issue mountaintop removal permits. He continues to cover industry abuses for the Gazette.
We also invited ICG to be on the program but they did not return our calls.
* Ken Ward, staff writer for the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia. He wrote an award-winning series of articles for the paper about coal-industry abuses in West Virginia, revealing that state regulators routinely ignore the law when they issue mountaintop removal permits.
LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/05/1454250
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Excellent show as usual on D.N. but no mention of whether the mine was U.M.W.A. or not . Also Ken Ward of the Charleston West Virginia Gazette rightly pointed out that the coal corporation seemed to be controlling the information flow but no mention why union miners weren't grabbing the mikes and denouncing this corporate crime . ( After the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster all UMWA miners walked off their jobs for a shift in protest of that very preventable event )
Family members, friends and co-workers continued to mourn Thursday the deaths of 12 coal miners killed at the Sago Mine in West Virginia as preparations were being made in several communities to hold funerals for the men. The grieving, however, could not conceal an undercurrent of anger directed at company and state officials over well-known safety violations at the mine and the false hopes that officials generated by their report that 11 of the men had been rescued alive.
Relatives and friends viewed the bodies at a makeshift morgue set up at an old elementary school gym in the town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. They also held a candlelight vigil attended by some 200 people Wednesday night in front of the Sago Baptist Church, where they had learned the fate of the miners less than a day before. Speaking about the victims, one miner said, “I know the men under that hill and I called them my brothers.”
An explosion at the mine early Monday morning trapped the 13 men underground. One miner, 50-year-old Terry Holmes, apparently died instantly, while the other 12 further inside the mine sought to escape poisonous carbon monoxide gases by retreating to the coal face and constructing a makeshift barricade to conserve fresh air and await rescue. Eleven of those men apparently succumbed to the gas during the 41 hours underground, while one miner, 26-year-old Randal McCloy, was rescued alive. McCloy remains in a coma at a Morgantown hospital.
Some of the men reportedly left notes assuring their loved ones that their final hours underground were not spent in agony, according to a relative. “The notes said they weren’t suffering, they were just going to sleep,” said Peggy Cohen, who identified the body of her father Fred Ware Jr.
The dead include: Alby Martin Bennett, 50, of Buckhannon; Jim Bennett, 61, of Philippi; George Hammer Jr., 54, of Glady Fork; David Lewis, 28, of Philippi; Martin Toler, 50, of Flatwoods; Fred Ware Jr., 59, of Tallmansville; Jack Weaver, 52, of Philippi; Marshall Winans, 49, of Talbert; Jerry Groves, 56, of Cleveland; Jesse Jones, age unknown of Pickens; and Thomas Anderson, 39, residence unknown.
Federal and state authorities began the investigation into the causes of the disaster on Thursday. Inspectors from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) believe the blast occurred in a portion of the mine that had been mined out much earlier and sealed from the rest of the operation. West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin said Wednesday that because air could not circulate in the so-called “gob” area, it was doubtful that combustible coal dust had accumulated there. He said, however, that methane gas—which is particularly dangerous in the winter months—may have built up there.
More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/mine-j06.shtml
Relatives and friends viewed the bodies at a makeshift morgue set up at an old elementary school gym in the town of Buckhannon, West Virginia. They also held a candlelight vigil attended by some 200 people Wednesday night in front of the Sago Baptist Church, where they had learned the fate of the miners less than a day before. Speaking about the victims, one miner said, “I know the men under that hill and I called them my brothers.”
An explosion at the mine early Monday morning trapped the 13 men underground. One miner, 50-year-old Terry Holmes, apparently died instantly, while the other 12 further inside the mine sought to escape poisonous carbon monoxide gases by retreating to the coal face and constructing a makeshift barricade to conserve fresh air and await rescue. Eleven of those men apparently succumbed to the gas during the 41 hours underground, while one miner, 26-year-old Randal McCloy, was rescued alive. McCloy remains in a coma at a Morgantown hospital.
Some of the men reportedly left notes assuring their loved ones that their final hours underground were not spent in agony, according to a relative. “The notes said they weren’t suffering, they were just going to sleep,” said Peggy Cohen, who identified the body of her father Fred Ware Jr.
The dead include: Alby Martin Bennett, 50, of Buckhannon; Jim Bennett, 61, of Philippi; George Hammer Jr., 54, of Glady Fork; David Lewis, 28, of Philippi; Martin Toler, 50, of Flatwoods; Fred Ware Jr., 59, of Tallmansville; Jack Weaver, 52, of Philippi; Marshall Winans, 49, of Talbert; Jerry Groves, 56, of Cleveland; Jesse Jones, age unknown of Pickens; and Thomas Anderson, 39, residence unknown.
Federal and state authorities began the investigation into the causes of the disaster on Thursday. Inspectors from the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) believe the blast occurred in a portion of the mine that had been mined out much earlier and sealed from the rest of the operation. West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin said Wednesday that because air could not circulate in the so-called “gob” area, it was doubtful that combustible coal dust had accumulated there. He said, however, that methane gas—which is particularly dangerous in the winter months—may have built up there.
More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/mine-j06.shtml
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