Search teams have located the remains of the coal miner who had been unaccounted for after a West Virginia mine flooded on the weekend, according to the governor on Thursday.
The body was found inside the mine site near the town of Belva, approximately 80 kilometers to the east of the capital city of the capital.
Details of the Incident
A team of miners had encountered an unknown pocket of water last weekend about three-quarters of a mile into the mine, which flooded after an old mine wall “was compromised”, authorities said. More than a dozen other miners were accounted for after the accident was notified.
Recent Deaths at Company Sites
This fatality marks the third at a mining facility in the state this calendar year. The previous two took place in nearby the county of Raleigh: a case in the eighth month when an lift being inspected struck a worker on a first-floor platform, and another in February when a coal seam fell on a contractor at a separate location.
Rescue Operation Efforts
Holes were created in the mine in an effort to accelerate the rescue mission, and underwater specialists searched potential areas in the water where air pockets might exist. Specialized communication equipment were supplied to facilitate better underground communication over great distances.
About the Mine
The Rolling Thunder is among eleven underground mines managed in West Virginia by the headquartered in Tennessee corporation. The business also runs four surface mines in the region, as well as other mining locations in neighboring Virginia.
Officials noted that the abandoned mine adjacent to Rolling Thunder had been in use during the 1930s and 1940s.
Engineering Report
A report prepared in February for the operator by an engineering consulting firm indicated that the region had been “extensively explored” by previous mine owners, generating substantial archival information that was reviewed in assessing its coal extraction prospects.
The same report says that the mineral deposit runs parallel to and beneath the drainage of a nearby creek, but said there were “no significant hydrologic concerns” affecting mining.
