Searchers look for miners feared trapped

[KBay84]

Miners missing in West Virginia mine less than month after Sago

Friday, January 20, 2006; Posted: 9:24 a.m. EST (14:24 GMT)


Officials consult a map while discussing the search for two miners who are believed trapped.

LOGAN, West Virginia (CNN) -- Rescue teams were searching a West Virginia coal mine early Friday for two miners separated from their crew as they were escaping a fire, officials said.

The fire was reported Thursday night at the Aracoma Mine in Logan County, West Virginia, about 60 miles southwest of Charleston.

A crew of 12 was working in the mine when a monitor went off at 5:36 p.m., indicating a fire, according to Doug Conaway, director of the West Virginia Office of Miner's Health, Safety and Training.

Ten miners exited the mine about two hours later, he said.

Four mine rescue teams were working underground trying to reach the two miners, Conaway said. Two other teams were on standby and more were en route, he said.

The fire was about 10,000 feet inside the mine and about 900 to 1,000 feet underground, he said.

"The air quality has been pretty good," said Conaway, referring to the area where the searchers were able to reach. The team did encounter some smoke in another area, and the fire was smoldering, he said.

The mine's ventilation system was working "as far as we can tell," he said later, adding there was no reason for it to stop operating.

A belt drive was believed to have caught on fire, Conaway and a spokeswoman for Gov. Joe Manchin said.

The governor said the two miners' names and ages were not released at the request of the families involved.

"Time is not our friend," said Manchin. "The longer the time goes, the more difficult it becomes, so we're concerned about that."

The incident happened less than a month after the disaster at the Sago Mine in Tallmansville where 12 miners died. The only survivor remained hospitalized Friday. (Read latest on his condition)

Unlike with Sago, "we have a difference this time," said Manchin. "We don't have an explosion, which is good news."

And although carbon monoxide is always present in a mine fire, he said, levels were "nowhere near what they were in the Sago Mine."


http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/01/20/mine.fire/index.html

[Woodmonkey]

This is awful. Those poor people.

[conlor]

Why don't they have better safety measures? They've been digging underground for a long time and should have come up with something by now.

[MR Nasty]

Life as a miner must be tough. It has always been one of the most hazzardous professions around. The focus is extra magnafied since the last cave in. I watch the news now and the networks are all mining experts. The safety of mines has been the at the forefront of the mining unions since their inception. I think that they are well aware of the dangers and go down knowing the uncertainties and dangers of the mining profession. God bless them and their families.

[Snowden]

Underground Fire Hinders Search for Miners
By KELLEY SCHOONOVER, Associated Press Writer



With the search for two missing miners partially blocked by the smoke and intense heat of an underground fire, workers on the surface drilled deep into a mine shaft in a effort to contact the missing men, but they got no response, officials said Saturday.
A conveyor belt inside the mine caught fire Thursday evening and may have spread into a coal seam, officials said. Nineteen miners escaped, but others two never made it to the surface.
"Part of the problem ... with the fire is we are having roof falls," said Doug Conaway, director of the state's Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training. "The heat from the fire is deteriorating the roof."
Another problem was ventilation — air flow could cause the fire to flare up and spread.
The rescuers had still had no contact with the missing men Saturday morning.
They drilled a 200-foot hole into the mine and pounded on a steel drill bit in an attempt to communicate with the miners and locate them, but there was no response, said Jesse Cole, an official with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. A camera and a microphone lowered into the hole detected no sign of them, he said.
Two teams were fighting the fire, and four more were ready to resume the search in the mine shaft beyond, but they couldn't pass because of the intensity of the heat, Conaway said.
At the surface, relatives of the missing miners gathered in a church for regular updates from officials about their loved ones. The governor, a congressman and two widows men killed in another West Virginia mine disaster less than three weeks earlier tried to console them.
"It has been one big and close family that has been in the church for close to two days now," Rep. Nick Rahall (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., said Saturday.
He said officials had been forthright with the families and briefing them regularly.
"They have asked questions and they are truly truly praying at this point as we all are that their loved ones be returned to them as soon as possible," Rahall said.
The missing men were equipped with oxygen canisters that typically produce about an hour's worth of air, but officials said there were also pockets of good air inside the mine that they could have reached.
"I've got faith in the Lord and I've got faith in them. I believe if anybody can come out of it, they will," said John Goff, 45, of Logan, whose nephew was among 19 miners who made it out of Aracoma Coal's Alma No. 1 mine.
Gov. Joe Manchin said the families were hopeful, but knew "the odds are a little bit long."
Rescuers were hampered by heavy smoke that cut visibility to 2 to 3 feet, but they were able to get into four tunnels in the mine, each about four miles long. The mine extends as much as 900 feet below ground.
The fire started where a side conveyor belt meets the main line that brings the coal out, authorities said.
John Langton, MSHA's deputy administrator for coal mine safety and health, said belt fires can occur when belt rollers get stuck or out of alignment and rub against the structure supporting them. Another possible cause is the accumulation of coal or coal dust.

The southwestern West Virginia mine, owned by Richmond, Va.-based Massey Energy, received more than 90 citations from the Mine Safety and Health Administration in 2005. According to the MSHA Web site, the most recent were issued Dec. 20, when the mine was hit with seven violations for items such as its ventilation plan and its efforts to control coal dust and other combustible materials.
Officials emphasized that there were key differences between the Alma mine fire and the Jan 2. explosion at the Sago mine that led to the deaths of 12 miners. For one, the carbon monoxide levels, while higher than normal, were not as severe, Conaway said.
Also, the ventilation system continued to work at the Alma mine and no methane was detected coming out, said Robert Friend, acting deputy assistant secretary for MSHA.
That enabled rescuers to act more quickly than at Sago. The lone survivor from Sago, 26-year-old Randal McCloy Jr., remained hospitalized in a light coma Saturday.
Manchin hinted that he would eventually seek mine reforms but would not provide details. "As soon as this rescue operation is completed ... I will have a statement that will change mining, not only in this state but across the country," the governor said.
Jimmy Marcum, a 54-year-old retired miner from Delbarton, said better equipment is needed to protect miners from such accidents. "I mean, they can send a man to the moon but they can't make a (oxygen canister) that will last at least 16 hours. ... That's what they need to do," said Marcum.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060121/...e_us/mine_fire

[JohnRN]

Still no good news huh?

[Snowden]

No - no good news, John. I'm afraid there may not be good news.