First drill breaks through into West Virginia mine
MONTCOAL, West Virginia (Reuters) - Rescuers drilled into a stricken West Virginia mine early on Wednesday but heard no signs of life from four miners missing since an explosion killed 25 people in the worst U.S. mine disaster in a quarter century.
The rescue teams banged on pipes at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, but there was no response from the men missing since Monday's blast, Governor Joe Manchin said at a news briefing.
The first drill broke through into the mine before dawn, at 4:15 a.m. (8:15 a.m. British time), he said. Rescuers were drilling four boreholes down 1,100 (335 metres) in a bid to vent the mine and hit a 20 foot (6 metre) long chamber where authorities believe the missing miners could be.
Bodies of 11 men, three of whom were related, have been identified and 14 bodies were still in the mine, located 30 miles (48 km) south of the state capital Charleston.
The drilling aims to release any dangerous build up of methane gas in the mine so that rescuers can get inside.
"That mine is so full of methane gas and all kinds of toxins that if someone went in there now they would take one breath and they would die," West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller told CNN on Tuesday evening.
"We hope there will be a miracle," he said.
In 2006, Randal McCloy was rescued from a coal mine in Sago, West Virginia, nearly 42 hours after a blast killed 12 of his co-workers.
Shares of Massey Energy closed down more than 11 percent on Tuesday at the New York Stock Exchange. The Richmond, Virginia-based company is the largest coal producer in Central Appalachia, operating in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia.
Analysts said Massey might see a short-term financial hit from the disaster, but Wall Street was bullish on the company's long-term ability to ramp up production to reap higher prices for steel-making coal.
Questions have been raised by experts and observers about Massey's safety record and the laws governing the mining industry. Mining has always been dangerous, but 2009 was the safest ever for U.S. miners, with 34 deaths, according to federal data, 18 fewer than 2008.
Massey's accident rate fell to an all-time low in 2009, the sixth consecutive year its safety record was stronger than the industry average, the company said on its website.
But Upper Big Branch Mine has had three fatalities since 1998 and has a worse-than-average injury rate over the last 10 years, according to federal records. Ellen Smith, editor of Mine Safety and Health News, said the mine has been repeatedly cited for safety violations.
The mine disaster appeared to be caused by "an explosion of some sort, but we're not clear what happened yet, we don't really know what to say about it," Don Blankenship, chief executive officer of Massey Energy, told ABC's "World News."
"All the safety people we have on hand, all felt this was a safe coal mine," he said.
Kevin Stricklin of the U.S. Mine and Safety Health Administration said investigators would leave "no stone unturned" to find out what happened.
The Upper Branch Mine blast is the country's deadliest mining disaster since 1984, when 27 miners died in a fire in Utah, according to the U.S. Mine Rescue Association.
In the worst coal mine disaster in U.S. history, 362 miners died in an explosion in 1906 in West Virginia's Monongah mine.
(Writing by Michelle Nichols and Ellen Wulfhorst, editing by Vicki Allen)