West Virginia mine blast kills 12 with 10 missing

MONTCOAL, West Virginia (Reuters) - Rescuers raced to find 10 coal miners missing deep underground after an explosion killed 12 of their colleagues on Monday at a West Virginia mine owned by Massey Energy.


First responders arrive at the scene of a mining accident at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, April 5, 2010. (REUTERS/WVVA-TV/Handout)
The accident at the Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, also known as Whitesville, was one of the deadliest at a U.S. coal mine in recent years. The mine, owned by Massey's Performance Coal subsidiary, is about 30 miles (48 km) south of the state capital, Charleston.

Mine officials said the death toll rose to 12 after rescuers discovered five bodies more underground in addition to seven dead reported earlier.

"There are 10 men that we're looking for right now," Kevin Striklin of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration told a news conference at the mine. "We are focused on getting in there as quickly as possible.

Mine officials said there were two underground emergency centres stocked with food, water and enough air to survive for four days. Rescuers are heading toward these shelters and hope to reach them within a few hours.

"We want to assure the families of all the miners we are taking every action possible to locate and rescue those still missing," said Massey's CEO Don Blankenship.

Rescuers included officials from state and federal mine safety agencies and first responders from all levels of government, said Leslie Fitzwater, a spokeswoman for the West Virginia Department of Commerce.

West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin called the news "devastating" and offered support to the miners' relatives.

"For those families who are still waiting for news on their missing loved ones, I want them to know that we are doing everything possible in cooperation with federal officials and the company to get our miners out as quickly and safely as possible," Manchin said on his website.

Manchin, who said he had spoken with President Barack Obama about the disaster, was headed to the mine site was due to meet with the miners' families.

Massey, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, is the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia with operations in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia.

In after-hours trading, Massey shares were at $51.90, down 5.1 percent from the closing price of $54.69 on the New York Stock Exchange.

ACCIDENT RATE

Massey said on its website its accident rate fell to an all-time low for the company in 2009. It said its safety record last year was stronger than the industry average for the sixth consecutive year.

But, according to federal records, the Upper Big Branch Mine has had three fatalities since 1998 and has a worse than average injury rate over the last 10 years. Two of the miners died in roof collapses in 1998 and 2001, while a third was electrocuted in 2003 when repairing an underground car.

Ellen Smith, the editor of Mine Safety and Health News, said the Upper Big Branch mine had been repeatedly cited for safety violations going back years.

The mine, which employs just over 200 people, extracts coal using the "longwall mining" method in which a rotating shearer tears coal from a lengthy face, leading the ground behind it to collapse. Critics say the method may cause surface subsidence and damage to buildings.

In the worst coal mine disaster in U.S. history, 362 miners died in an explosion in 1906 in the Monongah mine, also in West Virginia.

In January 2006, 12 miners died after an explosion in the Sago Mine, run by International Mines Corp in Tallsmansville, West Virginia, according to the U.S. Mine Rescue Association. In 2007, nine miners died in a collapse of the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah.

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said it was notified of the explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine at about 3:30 p.m. EDT (1930 GMT) on Monday and that rescue efforts were underway.