Safety News

Report Blames Lightning for Explosion in Sago Mine

12.08.06, NY Times

By The Associated Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va., Dec. 7 (AP) — State investigators have concluded that the Sago Mine explosion that killed 12 miners on Jan. 2 was caused by a lightning bolt that ignited methane gas underground, a union official has said.

The mine’s owner, International Coal Group Inc., has argued since March that lightning was to blame for the blast, a theory that critics of the company dispute.

The state’s report is to be released on Monday, but United Mine Workers officials who helped in the investigation have been briefed on it, Dennis O’Dell, the union’s health and safety director, said on Wednesday.

The chief of the state’s mine safety agency did not return a call for comment. The company declined to comment.

Some authorities have theorized that the metal housing of a natural gas well near the mine conducted the electrical charge from the lightning.

One miner was killed in the blast, and 11 others died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the more than 40 hours it took rescuers to reach them. Only one trapped miner, Randal McCloy Jr., survived.

Lightning has been known to cause underground explosions at some of the nation’s coal mines, but such occurrences are rare.

A report by J. Davitt McAteer, an adviser to Gov. Joe Manchin III and former chief of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, said in July that the company had failed to ground the mine’s electrical systems properly and to install lightning arrestors at some locations as required by law. That report also said more research would be needed to determine whether the factors contributed to the disaster.

The earlier finding means that the new report does not absolve the company, said John Groves, whose brother, Jerry Groves, was killed in the mine. “We want the truth, and if this is the truth, so be it,” Mr. Groves, who is suing the company, said on Thursday. “However, it is still a theory. And to find out absolutely — I don’t know if we’ll ever know that.”

The federal mine agency has hired a national laboratory to study lightning strikes and how they travel underground, said Richard E. Stickler, the agency’s chief.