Sago Mine Disaster

On Jan. 2, 2006, 29 coal miners went underground at the Sago Mine, Buckhannon, WV. At 6:26 a.m., an explosion propelled smoke, dust, debris & lethal carbon monoxide (CM) into the working sections of the mine. One miner was killed, 16 escaped, & 23 were unable to escape & retreated to await rescue. Rescuers found the trapped miners 41 hours later. By that time all but one had succumbed from CM asphyxiation. This is a report about why: the explosion was not contained; the mine rescue effort took so long; the trapped miners were sent no signal to tell them that help was coming; & after they were finally found, their waiting families were informed that all were alive -- & celebrated that news for 3 hours before being told the awful truth. Illus.

Sago Mine disaster and an overview of mine safety: hearing before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, One Hundred Ninth Congress, second session, special hearing January 23, 2006, Washington, DC.

At the request of the Mine safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety, and Training, the NIOSH's Pittsburgh Research Laboratory evaluated the effects of explosions on specific mine ventilation seals at its Lake Lynn Experimental Mine to assist the agencies in their investigations of the explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, which occurred on January 2, 2006. Six full-scale explosion tests were conducted to help answer questions regarding possible scenarios for the Sago explosion. NIOSH's findings and recommendations are documented within.

The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller, The Revenant -- basis for the award-winning motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio -- tells the remarkable story of the worst hard-rock mining disaster in American history. A half-hour before midnight on June 8, 1917, a fire broke out in the North Butte Mining Company's Granite Mountain shaft. Sparked more than two thousand feet below ground, the fire spewed flames, smoke, and poisonous gas through a labyrinth of underground tunnels. Within an hour, more than four hundred men would be locked in a battle to survive. Within three days, one hundred and sixty-four of them would be dead. Fire and Brimstone recounts the remarkable stories of both the men below ground and their families above, focusing on two groups of miners who made the incredible decision to entomb themselves to escape the gas. While the disaster is compelling in its own right, Fire and Brimstone also tells a far broader story striking in its contemporary relevance. Butte, Montana, on the eve of the North Butte disaster, was a volatile jumble of antiwar protest, an abusive corporate master, seething labor unrest, divisive ethnic tension, and radicalism both left and right. It was a powder keg lacking only a spark, and the mine fire would ignite strikes, murder, ethnic and political witch hunts, occupation by federal troops, and ultimately a battle over presidential power.

"The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and the West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety, and Training (WVOMHS&T) investigated the explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, which occurred on January 2, 2006, and resulted in 12 fatalities. As part of the investigation, the agencies requested that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's (NIOSH) Pittsburgh Research Laboratory evaluate the effects of explosions on specific mine ventilation seals and other structures and objects at its Lake Lynn Experimental Mine (LLEM). The results of the LLEM study would assist MSHA and WVOMHS&T in a more thorough understanding of the various questions that arose during their investigations of the explosion. Six large-scale explosion tests were conducted in the LLEM from April to October 2006. The protocols for these tests, and in particular the procedures for constructing various Omega block seals, were developed mainly by MSHA and WVOMHS&T. NIOSH developed the experimental procedures at the LLEM that would provide the required range of explosion pressures against the seals ... By comparing the results of known explosion loading pressures on the various ventilation structures and objects in the LLEM with their observations at the Sago Mine, MSHA and WVOMHS&T could better analyze the explosion pressures that may have occurred at the Sago Mine."--P. [1]-2.