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Sago Families to Coal Group: Don’t Blame Lightning |
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Family members of the 12 miners killed in the Jan. 2 Sago coal mine disaster are not buying International Coal Group’s (ICG) assertion that lightning caused the deadly blast at the company’s Sago Mine.
Federal and state mine safety officials have not pinpointed lightning as the cause and Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts grilled ICG’s paid consultant who prepared the company’s report that singles out lightning as the cause.
Hearings on the mine disaster wrapped up May 4 in Buckhannon, W.Va., where family members were allowed to question company officials and other witnesses about the tragedy and the safety or lack of it at the mine. The families initially were denied the right to directly question witnesses, but after families and supporters protested, hearing officials allowed the families’ direct questioning.
Sara Bailey, the daughter of Sago miner Junior Hamner, said ICG’s report was “an effort to influence public opinion.” She said the report was “not believable. They did not answer the questions.”
According to the report, a bolt of lightning hit a tree on the morning of the explosion, traveled to a power line 300 feet away and then entered the mine, possibly through the ground.
At the request of some survivors of the Sago victims, UMWA President Roberts was allowed to question Thomas Novak, the Virginia Tech mining professor, hired by ICG to investigate the blast.
The Associated Press reports:
Roberts challenged Novak on the improbability of the explosion having been caused by a lightning strike so far from the mine and one traveling such an indirect path.
“In the history of coal mining in North America … can you cite one single incident where lightning has struck the ground without going through a conduit of some type, such as metal pipe?” Roberts asked.
“No, I can’t,” Novak said.
“But you come today suggesting that that’s what happened at Sago, is that correct?”
After a pause, Novak replied, “That’s correct.”
Neither federal or state investigations have determined a cause for the blast and the Mine Safety and Health Administration’s accident investigation report says that a roof fall in the worked-out and sealed-off area where the blast occurred could have triggered the explosion.
Also, safety experts point out that if there had not been a source for combustion, that is methane at explosive levels, lightning would not have triggered the blast. It was reported last month that Sago mine officials had detected an increased level of methane in and around the sealed-off area where the blast occurred.
According to The Charleston Gazette:
The methane concentrations were not yet high enough to be ignited, and the general industry practice is to ignore mine areas that have been sealed. Mine safety experts now say the Sago test results appear to have been a warning that—if heeded—might have helped prevent West Virginia’s worst mining disaster in nearly 40 years.
Sago officials dismissed the methane sampling and took no preventative steps.
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