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Another W.Va. mine disaster:

Two miners found dead

Two miners were found dead in a coal mine in Melville, W.Va. Jan. 21, after an underground conveyor belt caught fire, filling the mine with poisonous fumes–19 workers were able to escape, but the two others were separated and unable to leave the mine.

It appeared the two victims, identified as Don I. Bragg, 33, and Ellery Hatfield, 47, made a “valiant effort” to escape, said Doug Conaway, director of the state Office of Miners’ Health Training and Safety.

The bodies were sent to a medical examiner’s office in Charleston.

The bodies were found in an area of the mine where rescue teams had been battling the intense blaze for more than 40 hours. Rescuers could not enter that portion of the mine until the flames had been mostly extinguished and the tunnels cooled down.

Rescue crews attempted for 48 hours after the fire broke out to search or the missing miners. The two men were equipped with oxygen canisters that typically produce about an hour’s worth of air.

The fire broke out Jan. 19. Rescuers were hampered by heavy smoke that cut visibility to 2 to 3 feet. After the blaze was brought somewhat under control rescuers spread out to search four tunnels, each about four miles long.

David Roberts, co-manager of Refab Co., a mining machinery repair company, said a friend on a mine rescue team told him it was very hot

-up to 400 degrees-and smoky inside the shafts.

Twenty-one miners were in the southwestern West Virginia mine when a carbon monoxide monitor 10,000 feet from the entrance set off an alarm.

The two victims died in the Aracoma Coa’s Alma No. 1 mine in Melville, about 60 miles southwest of Charleston. Both of the deceased miners had more than a decade of mining experience.

Jimmy Marcum, a 54-year-old retired miner from Delbarton, told the Associated Press, better equipment is needed to protect miners.

“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,” Marcum said.

Gov. Joe Manchin III traveled to Washington to discuss his proposals with the state’s congressional delegation, hoping they would seek reforms on the federal level.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said Congress must give the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration the tools to operate effectively, and may have to increase its budget.

“It’s unfortunate that every coal mine health and safety law on the books is written with the blood of coal miners,” Rahall said.

The federal Mine Health and Safety Act was written a year after a 1968 explosion in Farmington that killed 78 miners, including Gov. Manchin’s uncle.

Massey Energy opened the mine in 1999, and these are its first fatalities. The company said in a statement it was saddened by the miners’ deaths and would focus on comforting the families.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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