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NEWS > U.S.A. > MINE OFFICIALS ADMIT WEST VIRGINIA EXPLOSION WAS LIKELY A MISTAKE
MINE OFFICIALS ADMIT WEST VIRGINIA EXPLOSION WAS LIKELY A MISTAKE
April 7 2010
Charleston, WV – Arguably there is no more dangerous and no more forgiving profession than mining. Since the beginning of human civilization mining has been one of the most essential jobs, extracting precious metals and other compounds on which
modern society is based. At the heart of that operation has been one of the most thankless and treacherous professions mankind has ever created, and men and women that do that job putting their lives at risk every day they go to work.
Such was the case for the miners that work at the Upper Big Branch mine in Virginia which endured the worst nightmare for anyone that works in the industry. The explosion that blew through the mine on Monday, one of the most devastating in U.S. history, has killed at least 25 people with four more still missing. As rescue crews continue to dig into the rubble in a last ditch effort to rescue the remaining miners, questions about the safety of the mine have begun to surface. With hundreds of safety citations in the last few years, as well as a number of other deaths, much of those questions are being directed at the owners, Massey Energy, which has been officially mute so far on the incident. However, insiders have been a little more vocal, noting that while they did not know the cause of the explosion, they did believe that it was accidental.
“Obviously a big part of mining is blowing things up. That’s the only way to get through a lot of the rocks that the material is embedded in but normally we have people out of the way when those explosions occur. It’s a little unsafe to plant explosives when workers are in the way, and so we normally wait until they are clear,” said one insider. “That’s why we believe that this explosion was a mistake or an accident of some sort. Right now the concern is on the workers and the families, but following an investigation I’m sure it will be found that this whole thing was one big mistake and everything will turn out alright.”
Massey Energy has never been accused of murdering their employees deliberately, though one executive, who was not well liked, died after a mysterious car explosion in 1998.
“Mining is inherently a dangerous profession, right up there with rabid wolverine 
handling and anti-zombie technician and everyone knows that the worst could happen sometime, but usually doesn’t. That lulls people into a false sense of security and a lack of outrage when a company, like this, is fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for safety violations and can result in this kind of thing,” said Scrape TV Business analyst Ken Green. “I’m sure if these workers had felt that the mine was going to explode today they wouldn’t have gone into work. Even working class people in West Virginia aren’t stupid enough to go into an explodey mine, well most of them.”
No workers interviewed had been informed that the mine could explode, at least on Monday.
“I think it’s very unlikely that the owner would have deliberately blown up the mine with workers inside. Aside from the PR issues that something like that would cause, they are going to have to do a lot of cleaning up and now a whole lot of training. They say that the average employee costs $4000, multiply that by twenty-five and that’s a whole lot of green,” continued Green. “My guess, and I stress this is a guess, is that they will not go unpunished even if this was an accident. Generally speaking when you have this kind of bloodshed someone is going to get into trouble, whether or not that’s fair is a totally different question.”
Meanwhile in China dozens have been killed in deliberate mine explosions.
Mike Michaels, American Correspondent
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