Coal Mine collapse in Huntington

[Greg]

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=1593132

Hundreds of rescuers broke through walls of rock today in a desperate race to reach six coal miners trapped 1,500 feet beneath the earth's surface...

I know we have a bunch of guys on here that work in the coal mines, thought I'd send my best wishes & hope everyone makes it out alive.

 

[Tacoma]

That suuuuuuuucks. I hope they get to them all. :sick:

 

[timpanogos]

God bless all of our Price families

 

[Herzog]

Oh no...

 

[chadschoon]

best wishes

 

[offroaddave]

God bless them. Let's pray they will make it out safe.

 

[Tacoma]

Shoot. My neighbor works down there... but I don't know if he works THERE. I'll have to check in on them tomorrow.

 

[waynehartwig]

Sounds like they have a good chance of getting them out though... At least it's not like the fires or etc they have had in the past. With only one entrance blocked, there should still be plenty of air for them. Not like a fire, where it consumes all of the air and the only way to put it out is to smother it and definately killing any survivors.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

The mine owner (1/2 owner) has been on the news all morning... clearing the air so to speak. While it sucks he has been put in this situation... he ought to wait til' the sad situation is resolved (hopefully with those gents coming out alive!) before he points fingers!!!

 

[Kris K]

The owner seemed like an a$$.

 

[yellowbronco]

Anyone heard anything today?

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Anyone heard anything today?

They are going in to get at them from 3 directions...

As much as the owner comes across as an ass... he is laying down the law. Seems there are some trying to really give his mine & company a bad name... I give him props for calling out the media.

 

[PRICEJEEPER]

mine collapse

Don't be fooled by Bob Murrays crap he is an A$$ and he will only get worse as this situation drags on. Most of us down here in price know that it wasn't an earthquake that started this whole thing, it was a massive failure of the coal pillars near the area that they are mining. Coal can only handle so much weight before it crushes, it is not nearly as strong as the rock around it. This has happened in this area before however their has never been a cave in of this magnitude and there were very few injuries. If you go to the USGS.gov and look at the recent earthquakes area you can actually see were every mine is located down here. We all encounter these coal bounces on a daily basis, they average between a 1.0 and a 2.0 on the richter scale. Unfortunately the Genwall mine has experienced a major bounce which has crushed the pillars in the area that they were mining. I only hope that the area were the miners are located withstood the massive amount of weight and held up for them.

 

[Dixon]

The owner seemed like an a$$.

You got that right the guys who work for him hate his guts. He took over three mines a year ago and set himself up as the king. There was a lot of beheadings to start off.

 

[Thursty]

We are praying for all the miners and their families.
Godspeed.

 

[high_roller]

hope things turn out well, for the miners down there...

 

[scoutabout]

I do like something about this guy's style:

"In the last 24 hours we have built 8 miles of road into a Wilderness area." Robert E.Murray chairman of Murray Energy Corp., owner of the Crandall Canyon mine.

Thanks to Dave Jarvis for sending me the quote.

Definitely a sad story about the miners. If it turns out that the cave-in was a result of shoddy safety oversight or other neglect, I hope the ones responsible are prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.

 

[jet_aj]

the only ones who really know exactly what happened are those guys trapped in the mine... the owner said on fox news that

"From our mining experience, we know this was an earthquake," Murray said.

No DUH you idiot. He's trying to say that it was an earthquake that caused the collapse when EVERYONE else I've talked to (including a very reliable MSHA source who is a good friend and who has been working to rescue them for three days) are all telling me it was the collapse of the mine that caused the quake.
We wont know 100% until MSHA is finished with their investigation, but speculation points to the idea that they was REMOVING the coal pillars which were supporting the roof... what kind of IDIOT from Iowa coal lets them do this in western coal seams! These mines have 1500-2000 feet of material above them, not the eastern 300feet. (The owner, Murry, of this mine just so happens to have worked in eastern coal for the last 30 years...) I'm not pointing fingers, just one.

I sure hope they are found alive... but my gut tells me that only the two that were operating the machinery have any chance of withstanding the blowout of enough pillars to cause a 3.9 earthquake...

May God be with them.

 

[waynehartwig]

the only ones who really know exactly what happened are those guys trapped in the mine... the owner said on fox news that


No DUH you idiot. He's trying to say that it was an earthquake that caused the collapse when EVERYONE else I've talked to (including a very reliable MSHA source who is a good friend and who has been working to rescue them for three days) are all telling me it was the collapse of the mine that caused the quake.
We wont know 100% until MSHA is finished with their investigation, but speculation points to the idea that they was REMOVING the coal pillars which were supporting the roof... what kind of IDIOT from Iowa coal lets them do this in western coal seams! These mines have 1500-2000 feet of material above them, not the eastern 300feet. (The owner, Murry, of this mine just so happens to have worked in eastern coal for the last 30 years...) I'm not pointing fingers, just one.

I sure hope they are found alive... but my gut tells me that only the two that were operating the machinery have any chance of withstanding the blowout of enough pillars to cause a 3.9 earthquake...

May God be with them.

From what I understand that's what this mine does, remove the pillars. They know it's unsafe, but they do it anyway. It's their procedure.

 

[78mitsu]

From what I understand that's what this mine does, remove the pillars. They know it's unsafe, but they do it anyway. It's their procedure.

virtually all mines that use a longwall mine this way it's more then common practice, it's virtually the only way they mine, they mine out a section remove the supports and let it collapse/bounce, it's better then having to maintain that much overhead.


Initial reports indicated that the seismic stations calculated the epicenter over 20 miles away from the mine, I'm not saying anything, but it seems to me the media is painting the owner so he will be blamed either way.

The guy is an A$$ but that doesn't make it right to make an opinion until all the facts are in, been there makes you think twice before you do it to someone else.