Families hope and pray as rescuers dig for trapped miners
Wednesday, 4 January 2006
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Inside the white church they were hoping and praying for a miracle.
In the 36 hours since an explosion trapped 13 miners deep beneath a West Virginia valley, their friends and families had been waiting for any sign that the men might still be alive. By last night, with no news of the men and with rain and darkness enveloping the valley, they were desperately trying to believe that the miners could yet emerge alive.
"We just have faith," said Raymond Groves, whose brother Jerry was among the trapped men, as he stood outside the Sago Baptist Church where the families have gathered. "Until we hear they are not alive, we are going to believe they are."
Officials have not been optimistic about the chances of the men trapped inside the mine, believed to be about 260ft below the surface and at the end of an angled shaft about two miles long. Yesterday morning, Ben Hatfield, president of International Coal Group, the company which owns and operates the Sago mine, said tests had shown toxic levels of carbon monoxide in the area where the men were thought to have been trapped. He said rescuers were holding out hope that the miners managed to barricade themselves in a safe spot, but he said that cameras released into the mine had revealed no evidence of any such barricades.
The state's governor, Joe Manchin, summed up the mood when he was confronted by a family member yesterday afternoon. He told the woman: "We still pray for miracles in West Virginia. We still believe in miracles. We are hoping for that miracle."
Friends and relatives said that inside the church, people were trying to boost their spirits by praying, playing the piano and singing gospel songs.
Barbary Chaapal, whose brother-in-law, Jack Weaver, is trapped, said there was almost constant music. "People come up and sing. It has never stopped," she said. "[They are singing] songs such as 'The Old Rugged Cross' and 'Amazing Grace'. It's heartfelt."
In this remote part of America's poorest state, mining is a way of life for many communities, as are the risks that go with it. No one really talked about the dangers, said residents, but it was something that people were always aware of. In this part of the Appalachian mountains there were few enough jobs, they said, and many of the trapped men had been miners all their lives balancing the risks of the trade with the wages it brought.
"Up until recently there were even fewer jobs," said Mrs Chaapal's husband, Bill. "Everybody had been moving away to Ohio or Maryland."
Rescuers said they had been hampered in their attempts to reach the men by treacherous conditions, including the toxic levels of gas. Mr Hatfield said the teams of rescue workers, operating in a shift system, had advanced past mechanical robots that had been used earlier but became bogged down in mud. But late yesterday evening he said they had reached 10,200ft inside the mine. "We don't know exactly where the crew is, but it's somewhere between 11,000 and 13,000 feet," he added.
Since the explosion, officials have said the greatest danger to the miners would be the level of carbon monoxide. After rescuers drilled an initial hole into the area where the men are believed to be, it was found that the gas was at around three times the safe level.
Relatives said they had been told that a second hole had showed the existence of cleaner air something that had given them fresh hope.
Despite the lack of progress, what everyone is hoping for is a repeat of the 2002 mine rescue in Somerset, Pennsylvania, when nine men were rescued from beneath the ground after being trapped in a flooded shaft 240ft below ground for 77 hours.
"This is not a rookie crew underground," Gene Kitts, senior vice-president of the mining company, said of the men trapped in West Virginia.
"So we're just trusting that their training and their mining instincts have kicked in immediately and they've taken every step possible to put themselves out of harm's way."
While the cause of Monday morning's explosion remains unclear, officials said the Sago mine has had a history of roof collapses and serious safety violations mostly prior to the International Coal Company's purchase of the operation last November.
In 2004, the mine reported an injury rate three times that at similar sized operations, according to records held by the US Mine Safety and Health Administration.
