Mine Explosion In West Virginia Leaves 25 Dead, 4 Missing

A terrible tragedy has occurred in West Virginia:

The death toll from a blast at a West Virginia coal mine rose to 25 on Tuesday, federal safety officials said, making it the worst mining accident in the United States in 25 years.

Four miners were still missing, and the officials said it was likely that those men also had been killed in the explosion on Monday.

…

The explosion occurred about 3 p.m. Monday at the Upper Big Branch mine, 30 miles south of Charleston, in Raleigh County.

The mine, which employs about 200, is owned by the Massey Energy Company, based in Virginia, and operated by the Performance Coal Company.

Mine safety officials said that there were three groups of miners affected by the blast. One group consisted of nine miners who were leaving the site at the end of their shift in a vehicle known as a “man trip.” Seven of the miners in the man trip were killed by the explosion while two others were injured and taken to the hospital by rescue workers.

A second group of 18 miners was said to be working a bit deeper in the mine, closest to the area where coal was actually being extracted. All 18 of them died.

A third group of four miners — the ones still unaccounted for — was even deeper in the mine.

The NYT reports that there is some evidence that the emergency breathing kits were taken from the storage rooms, so that is why there is still hope of rescuing the remaining 4 men.

When I was reading this article the name “Massey Energy” rang a bell. Massey Energy is well-known as a polluter and a company that does mountain top removal, but Massey Energy is also known for the buying a judgeship in West Virginia:

In November 2007, the West Virginia Supreme Court overturned a $50 million jury verdict against Massey, brought by mining companies that said Massey had driven them out of business. However, the Court agreed to hear the case again when photographs surfaced of Chief Justice Elliott E. Maynard and Massey CEO Don Blankenship vacationing together while the case was still pending. Maynard recused himself from the case, but Justice Brent D. Benjamin, who was elected to the Court in 2004 with the help of $3 million of support from Blankenship, refused to disqualify himself. The court again decided in Massey’s favor.

On November 14, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Harman Mining Corp.’s appeal of the overturned jury verdict. Harman’s appeal said its constitutional due process rights had been violated, and asked the Supreme Court to consider whether Justice Benjamin should have disqualified himself from the case because of his connections to Massey. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case February or March. A decision is expected by the end of June. In June 2009, the Court issued its ruling, finding that Justice Benjamin should have recused himself and remanding the case back to the West Virginia Supreme Court.

Here is the ABC News story on Don Blankenship and his controversy with the West Virginia Supreme Court.