07 Apr Blood on the coal – again

The New York Times has an excellent interactive graphic showing the underground layout of the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, where at least 25 miners died in a methane explosion Monday.

The Times also detailed the Massey Energy Company’s dismal safety record:

In 2008, one of its subsidiaries paid what federal prosecutors called the largest settlement in the history of the coal industry after pleading guilty to safety violations that contributed to the deaths of two miners in a fire in one of its mines. That year, Massey also paid a $20 million fine — the largest of its kind levied by the Environmental Protection Agency — for clean water violations.

Two current miners told the company the Big Branch pit had been evacuated three times in the last two months because of dangerously high methane levels. In an unwitting testament to the desperation that drives men underground in Montcoal, W. Va., and Plymouth, NS, the miners asked the Times not to identify them, for fear they might lose their jobs.