Alma No. 1 Mine

Alma No. 1 Mine.jpg
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On Thursday,
January 19, 2006, following a mine fire at Aracoma Coal's Alma No. 1 mine, two miners became separated form the rest of their crew as they all fled the smoke and fire. On Sunday, the bodies of Don “Israel” Bragg, 33, and Ellery “Elvis” Hatfield, 47 were found by search and rescue crews. This brings the total to 14 men who have perished this year in mining related deaths .

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Ahead, high-tech help for mine rescues
The illustration above comes from this article...

New mine safety laws studied by W.Va legislature

'Valiant Effort' Ends In Tragedy

Rescuers Find the Bodies of Missing Miners

Real Audio from 'The Newshour' on the Senate Mine Saftey Hearings

UMWA OK’D AS SAGO MINERS’ SAFETY REP —
The Mine Workers will be allowed to represent the interests of the nonunion miners at the Sago Mine in Upshur County, W.Va., during the investigation into the Jan. 3 explosion that killed 12 miners. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) approved the UMWA participation after it received a request for the union’s help from Sago miners. Federal mine safety laws permit the union to represent miners at any mine on safety issues at the request of two or more miners. UMWA representatives will have the right to be present during any MSHA interviews of the miners and will be allowed to accompany MSHA investigators during mine walk-throughs. The mine’s owners, International Coal Group (ICG), objected to the union’s participation, but MSHA certified the UMWA’s role Jan. 18. “This investigation is about finding out the truth. If the company has nothing to hide, it should favor an open investigation with all parties participating fully,” said UMWA President Cecil Roberts. At the Aracoma Alama No. 1 mine—a nonunion mine in Logan County, W.Va.—two miners died after a Jan. 20 fire that 10 other miners escaped. Roberts called on Congress and state legislatures to take “whatever steps are needed” to ensure federal and state mine safety agencies strictly enforce mine safety regulations. “We must also develop new initiatives that will give every miner a vastly improved chance to walk out of a mine after an accident, alive and well and safe in the arms of their loved ones,” he said after the two miners’ bodies were recovered Jan. 22

CANARY IN THE MINESHAFT

Some News reports on the Sago Disaster
Tallmansville, West Virginia,

Boston Globe: Miners' notes reveal their final moments

AFL-CIO "News For Working Families" Mine Tragedy Raises Questions About Bush Administration’s Lack of Safety Enforcement

Wikapedia Sago Mine Disaster


CANARY IN THE MINESHAFT
Originally uploaded by Greatwork.

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Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine,
And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines.
It will form as a habit and seep in your soul,
'Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal.

CHORUS: It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew,
Where danger is double and pleasures are few,
Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines
It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine.

It's a-many a man I have seen in my day,
Who lived just to labor his whole life away.
Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine,
A man will have lust for the lure of the mines.

I hope when I'm gone and the ages shall roll,
My body will blacken and turn into coal.
Then I'll look from the door of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner a-di
ggin' my bones.

Merle Travis