West Virginia coal mine cited hundreds of times for safety violations has a roof collapse...

[Archae]

2 miners killed.
(BTW, notice the name of the coal mining company.)

West Virginia Mine Owned By Patriot Coal With Hundreds Of Violations, Takes 2 Lives With Roof Collapse

In 2013, Brody Mine near Wharton, West Virginia garnered 253 ‘significant and substantial’ violations from MSHA during a 12-month review, and now that mine has collapsed, taking two lives. According to the MSHA report, the violations show the mine, owned by Patriot Coal, had a disregard for the health and safety of its miners at the time the violations were issued.

West Virginia State Police have confirmed the deaths of two miners following a roof collapse.

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/05/west-virginia-mine-owned-patriot-coal

[LuvNewcastle]

1. For some reason, the link provided didn't display the article for me,

so I don't know if what I'm asking is covered in the article. How many violations does a mine have to get before they shut it down? Considering how many people work in mines in WV, you'd think they would have some strict regulations on the conditions the miners are forced to work under. I hope more people aren't trapped in the mine, and I hope the families of the fallen miners are given the support they need at this time.

[leftyohiolib]

2. so whose going to prison

[Sunlei]

3. Those mines will always take lives.Wonder how many thousands of people have died in those coal mines

in just the past 100 years. Not even counting the persons who died gasping for air from coal dust diseases.

[Archae]

4. There was an article about a corrupt "doctor" who caused Black Lung sufferers to suffer more.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/10/30/13637/johns-hopkins-medical-unit-rarely-finds-black-lung-helping-coal-industry-defeat

[Sunlei]

6. How tragic for them And the industry could easily afford to pay for a lung transplant or proper tx.

Just today, I read there was a coal mine explosion in some other country, India? Same thing some miners dead , plus a thousand people? who lived on top of and around the mine were killed in the explosion.

These coal mines will get away with exploiting their workers, killing people forever. I think our USA mines export a lot of the coal for use in other countries.

[Jenoch]

5. My father worked for a West Virginia radio station in 1960.

He was the first newsman on the scene of a coal mine fire which killed 18 miners. These mines are very dangerous places to work and the companies that own them seem to skirt the law with some frequency.

In the county my dad lived in in West Virginia at that the time the most sought after political office was that of the county sheriff. Even 50+ years ago hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on the race for sheriff. The reason is because the sheriff collected delinquent property taxes. The coal mine companies paid hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in property taxes. The sheriff would approach the mine manager and they made a deal to pay the property taxes a week or two late. The fine would be $20,000 or so and they would split the money. The mine owners likely never knew what was going on.

(On a side note, my father witnessed Joe Kennedy buying votes for his son in the West Virginia presidential primary in 1960. Of course he didn't see Joe himself doing this. If somebody wanted to sell their vote, they got a ballot already completed for JFK and they were give either $3 or a coupon for a free quart of moonshine from a local establishment.)