AP News, May 9th, 2007
Two simultaneous lightning bolts likely caused an electrical current in a cable left deep inside the Sago Mine and touched off the methane blast blamed for the deaths of 12 coal miners last year, the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration said Wednesday.
Lightning is one of three "root causes" the agency cites in its long-awaited investigation into the Jan. 2, 2006, explosion.
Lightning had been suspected from the start, but the report for the first time describes its likely path, saying an electrical current traveled through the earth to the buried cable. Previous reports by the state and the mine's owner, International Coal Group, Inc., mentioned lightning but not its route.
Contributing to the blast, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Associated Press, methane levels inside the sealed section of the mine were not monitored, and seals used to close off that inactive section from the mine's working area were not strong enough to withstand the blast.
Relatives of two of the Sago victims bashed the report and its findings, with one saying she didn't trust MSHA and its report. The miners' union called MSHA's theory "far-fetched."
The explosion trapped a team of miners deep inside. By the time searchers reached them about 40 hours later, only one man had survived in the carbon monoxide gas.
It was the highest-profile coal mining accident in recent U.S. history and led to sweeping changes in federal and state mine safety laws.
The company idled the mine in March because of high production costs and low coal prices.
Mine Safety and Health Administration chief Richard E. Stickler and lead investigator Richard Gates met Wednesday morning with the victims' families and the sole survivor, Randal McCloy Jr., at West Virginia Wesleyan College.
Sara Bailey, whose father, George Junior Hamner, died in the mine, walked out of the briefing early.
"I don't believe MSHA and I don't trust MSHA and I think they are a disappointment to our nation's coal miners," Bailey said.
"It's going to make a difference on paper, but it's not going to make a difference to the miners who risk their lives every day trying to support their families," said Pam Campbell, whose brother-in-law Marty Bennett died in the mine.
Although Sago was a nonunion mine, the United Mine Workers union participated in the state and federal investigations and issued its own report. The union's experts believe the spark that ignited the methane gas came from friction between the mine's deteriorating rock roof and the metal support system used to hold it up. Bailey said she supports that theory.
The UMW had argued that, unlike other coal mine blasts linked to lightning, there was no metal conduit at Sago that could have carried the charge two miles into the mine to the point where the explosion took place.
The MSHA report said it appeared the company had tried to remove all the cables from the abandoned section of the mine, but left a 1,300-foot-long section.
Although that cable did not extend to the surface, the report said such a buried cable can act like an antenna. It said two lightning bolts, one a mile south of the mine's opening and the other one mile to the north, created an electrical current that was conducted through the soil and overloaded the cable, creating the spark that ignited the blast.
UMW President Cecil Roberts said that while the report shed some important light on the explosion, MSHA's theory is "far-fetched" and not supported by physical evidence. However, he said MSHA should draft emergency regulations requiring miners to leave underground mines when lightning storms approach.
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Associated Press writer Tim Huber in Buckhannon contributed to this report.
