Pennsylvania Explosion Kills Coal Miner in Deadliest Year Since 2001

by James Parks, Oct 23, 2006

One of the deadliest years on record in the nation’s coal mines just gets worse. Today, a coal mine explosion killed a Pennsylvania miner. Four others were able to escape.

State and federal investigators were attempting to determine the cause of the blast at the R&D Coal Co. anthracite mine in Schuylkill County, about 80 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Another coal miner was killed Friday in the collapse of a wall at the Whitetail Kittanning Mine in West Virginia.

That brings this number of coal miner deaths to 42 this year, equaling the total in all of 2001.  Every year since then the total has been fewer than 30. At this time last year, 16 miners had died in accidents. The total for all of last year was 22. This year’s deadliest accident killed 12 men at the Sago Mine in northern West Virginia in January.

The two latest deaths come just days after President Bush made a recess appointment of coal executive Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Bush had been unable to get Stickler’s nomination approved by the Senate, which had sent it back to the White House twice because of Stickler’s troubling mine safety record—the mines he managed from 1989 to 1996 incurred injury rates double the national average.

Mine Workers (UMWA) President Cecil Roberts said today the recess appointment “has demonstrated that the pleas of coal miners throughout the land for him to appoint a strong advocate for their safety to that position have fallen on deaf ears.”
 

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article |Comments (2)