UPDATE - the four miners have been found, but did not survive. A total of 29 miners died in the explosion. I have posted a new diary to report further details.
The West Virginia Gazette is reporting that around 2:30 p.m. EST this afternoon two eight-person teams began their trek back into the Big Branch Mine to locate four miners that have remained missing since Monday’s horrific explosion.
http://www.wvgazette.com/...
This is the 4th - and hopefully the last - attempt to locate the missing miners. Rescue teams were able to enter the mine late last night. Earlier in the week, the teams had already been able to determine that one of the rescue chambers was empty. Early this morning, they were only about 500 feet from checking a second rescue chamber when they had to turn back because of a fire in the mine and smoky dangerous air. A plan to lower a camera into the mine through a borehole to see if the second rescue chamber has been in use was also dashed. The borehole drill hit a solid block of coal -- making a clear camera view of the chamber impossible.
Now that the 4th rescue attempt has been launched, Kevin Stricklin, coal administrator for the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, estimates it could take 3 to 4 1/2 hours for the rescuers to make it to the second rescue chamber and the areas where they believe the missing miners are located. They believe one of the miners may be located in an area where longwall cutting was taking place and where at least 18 other miners were killed. The other three missing miners are believed to be about 2,000 feet away in a new development area of the mine.
Fingers crossed then, that by sometime this evening, maybe by 7, 8, 9:00 pm???, suffering families may at last begin to learn the fate of their missing loved ones. The teams are acutely aware that they will not be able to get to the second rescue chamber within 96 hours of Monday's explosion (i.e 3:00 p.m. EST today). This is the amount of time the chambers are supposed to keep people alive. However, the 96-hour limit is based on having at least 15 people inside the rescue chamber, so with only four people, perhaps they could survive longer. But hopes are fading fast that any of the four missing miners were been able to survive both the initial explosion and the acutely toxic mine air afterwards.
Rescue teams were able to re-enter the mine this afternoon only after an inerting process was begun, i.e. nitrogen was pumped into the mine tunnels. Nitrogen reduces air oxygen level, making the air less combustible and also putting out whatever fires may be burning in the mine. There seems to be conflicting reports about the need for nitrogen as part of the rescue effort, or at least at what stage of the rescue effort it would be needed. (also see Buckeye BattleCry's diaryhttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/4/9/10273/00494) However, a Department of Labor spokesman said that Massey Energy has "dragged its feet" in having the nitrogen delivered to the mine site. "We asked the company for it two days ago," said department spokesman Carl Fillichio. "We had to keep asking for it."
But what may really make your head explode are reports that workers from the Big Branch Mine had been sent home early the Friday before the explosion because of concerns about ventilation in the mine.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36183425/ns/us_news-life/
Pam Napper, whose 25-year-old son Josh died, said he had been sent home early the Friday before the explosion because of concerns about ventilation in the mine. He called her at 3:30 p.m. and she asked why he wasn't at work, where he usually stayed until at least 5:30.
"He said, 'Mom, the ventilation's bad,'" Pam Napper recalled Friday. "And they sent him out of the mines. Everybody. He went back to work Monday."
Before that, apparently over Easter weekend, he wrote a letter to his mother, his fiancée and his 19-month-old daughter, telling them that he would be looking down from heaven if anything happened to him.
"I just knew that Josh in his heart knew that something was going to happen," Pam Napper said.
If I had even the slightest fear that my office was about to explode the following work day, I would not HESITATE to call in sick - for the next week at least. But is this what being a miner is all about? Living daily with the fear that you will be blown to high heaven just for showing up at your job? What do they pay these people? It should be A LOT. Unfreakingbelievable.