Bush's fault.

Searchers look for miners feared trapped
Miners missing in West Virginia mine less than month after Sago

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

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."

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

Coal mining is a tough and dangerous job. Everyone who does it knows it.

<------ Grew up in a coal mining town.

tag

Underground coal mine fires are nothing to sneeze at.

I saw a documentary of a huge mine fire that caused plants in a huge area to die as the ground got hot.  It was basically a gigantic oven.  They eventually had to strip-mine it to put it out, IIRC.

Quoted: Underground coal mine fires are nothing to sneeze at. I saw a documentary of a huge mine fire that caused plants in a huge area to die as the ground got hot.  It was basically a gigantic oven.  They eventually had to strip-mine it to put it out, IIRC.

There is more than one underground coal mine in the US that has been burning
for decades.

Quoted: Coal mining is a tough and dangerous job. Everyone who does it knows it. <------ Grew up in a coal mining town.

Danger as a relative thing.  I spent 17 years mining and was on mine rescue teams as a team member and an instructor.  The only times I was involved with body recovery was to haul the dead carcass of tourists out of closed mines.

Stay out, stay alive.

SRM

Quoted: Quoted: Coal mining is a tough and dangerous job. Everyone who does it knows it. <------ Grew up in a coal mining town. Danger as a relative thing.  I spent 17 years mining and was on mine rescue teams as a team member and an instructor.  The only times I was involved with body recovery was to haul the dead carcass of tourists out of closed mines. Stay out, stay alive. SRM

Why do those numbnuts think some of those mines are closed in the first place?


Now they never reopened that worthless pit
They just placed a marble stand in front of it
These few words are written on that stand
At the bottom of this mine likes a big, big man: Big John