By JOHN RABY, Related Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The physique of a coal miner was discovered early Thursday in a mine that flooded in southern West Virginia, Gov. Patrick Morrisey mentioned.
Crews discovered the physique inside Alpha Metallurgical Sources Inc.’s Rolling Thunder Mine close to Belva, about 50 miles east of the state capital of Charleston.
A mining crew had hit an unknown pocket of water final Saturday about three-quarters of a mile into the mine, which flooded after an outdated mine wall “was compromised,” Gov. Patrick Morrisey mentioned. Greater than a dozen different miners have been accounted for after the accident was reported.
The loss of life is the third at an Alpha facility in West Virginia this yr. Each of the others occurred in close by Raleigh County: An elevator being examined struck a miner on a first-floor platform in August at Alpha subsidiary Marfork Coal’s processing facility, and a coal seam fell on a contractor in February at Alpha’s Black Eagle underground operation, in line with the U.S. Mine Security and Well being Administration.
Holes have been drilled within the mine in an try to hurry up the search course of and dive groups explored potential areas within the water the place air pockets may exist. The Nationwide Cave Rescue Fee offered surplus Military telephones hooked up to wires that may journey nice distances to allow for higher underground communication.
Rolling Thunder is considered one of 11 underground mines operated in West Virginia by Tennessee-based Alpha Metallurgical Sources Inc. The corporate additionally operates 4 floor mines within the state, in addition to three underground and one floor mine in Virginia.
Morrisey mentioned the deserted mine subsequent to Rolling Thunder had been in operation within the Thirties and Nineteen Forties.
A report ready in February for Alpha by an engineering consulting agency, Marshall Miller & Associates, mentioned the world had been “extensively explored” by earlier mine homeowners, producing “a major quantity of historic information” that Alpha examined in assessing its potential for producing coal.
The identical report says that the Rolling Thunder coal seam runs alongside and beneath the drainage of Twentymile Creek, however mentioned there have been “no important hydrologic considerations” about digging for extra coal within the extensively mined property.
In 1968 in the identical county, miners working for Gauley Coal and Coke at Hominy Falls by accident tunneled into an unmapped deserted mine close by, flooding their operation. 4 males died, however 15 miners have been delivered to the floor after 5 days, and 6 others additional into the mine have been rescued after 10 days.
In 2002 in southwestern Pennsylvania, 9 miners have been rescued after spending greater than three days trapped within the flooded Quecreek Mine.
