Only one of the 13 United States coal miners trapped for 41 hours underground has survived, the company which owns the mine said on Wednesday, hours after it was announced that 12 men had survived.
”The initial report from the rescue teams from the command centre indicated multiple survivors, but that information proved to be a miscommunication,” International Coal Group (ICG) president and chief executive Ben Hatfield told reporters.
”The only confirmed survivor is Randall McCloy, who has now been rushed to a local hospital in serious condition. The 11 remaining miners in the barricade structure were determined by the medical technicians on the rescue team to have already deceased,” Hatfield said.
Late on Tuesday, rescue teams recovered the body of a 13th miner, who was not a member of the work team that was found later in the tunnel.
They were trapped early on Monday by an explosion that ripped through the Sago mine as they were resuming work following the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Shortly before midnight local time, bells pealed and cheers were heard at the Sago Baptist church, as West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin announced: ”They told us they have 12 alive.”
An ambulance was seen leaving the mine with an injured miner on board, whom Hatfield later identified as the sole survivor of the tragedy. Local hospital officials said the 26-year-old miner was in critical condition and would be transferred to a larger medical centre at Morgantown.
At about 3am, a different scene evolved at the church as people began leaving in a state of shock and in tears after mining officials inside had confirmed the grim news that only one of the miners had survived.
Asked how such a serious mistake was made, Hatfield said the ICG had taken every precaution to make sure its information was correct but that ”bad information” from the rescue team was inadvertently relayed to the outside.
”What happened is that through stray cellphone conversations it appears that this miscommunication from the rescue team underground to the command centre was picked up by various people that simply overheard the conversations,” Hatfield said.
”ICG never made any release about all 12 of the miners being alive and well. We simply couldn’t confirm that at that point. But that information spread like wildfire because it had come from the command centre, but it was a bad information,” he added.
”This is certainly not the outcome that we had hoped for and prayed for. So, again our hearts and prayers go out to the families,” Hatfield said.
Governor Manchin later apologised for relaying the mistaken information about the survivors.
”I can’t tell you of anything more heartwrenching that I have gone thorough in my life,” said the governor, who lost an uncle and some of his schoolfriends in a mining accident in 1968.
Experts believe the surviving miners, who had an average 23 years’ experience in working underground, followed emergency procedures they had been taught and barricaded themselves inside the tunnel and waited to be rescued in vain.
Hatfield on Tuesday said the explosion appeared to come from an abandoned old wing of the mine, which was supposed to be sealed off and inert. The explosion destroyed ventilation seals, depleting the oxygen supply and allowing carbon monoxide into the air.
Rescue operations proceeded slowly from fear of further explosions and concentrations of poisonous gas.
While the causes of the blast have yet to be determined, some experts believe it was lightning that set off accumulated gas inside the tunnel.
”A thorough investigation of the cause and circumstances of this terrible accident will be undertaken by federal and state mine regulatory officials,” Hatfield said in his statement to the press early on Wednesday.
Hatfield on Tuesday avoided questions about the mine’s safety record, after reporters cited numerous violations in mine inspections.
Doug Conaway, an official with the state Office of Miners’ Health, Safety and Training, said authorities were aware of the safety violations but argued that they were a common occurrence in the industry.
The ICG, which went public last year, operates 11 mining complexes, of which 10 are located in northern and central Appalachia and one in the US state of Illinois.
West Virginia, a major coal-mining region in the US since the 19th century, had a relatively safe year in 2005, reporting only three fatal mining accidents.
The worst US mining tragedy to date took place in 1907 in Monongah, West Virginia, where an explosion killed 362 workers. — AFP
