Mining disasters now rare

Dark and dank and dangerous, coal mines have long been the stuff of nightmares. Collapses and explosions have been recurring dramas going back to the 1800s.

But the fact is, these disasters are far less common in the United States than they once were.

Industry, labor and the federal government have come together to emphasize safety, and the result has been a gradual decrease in the number of deaths and serious injuries, according to Lewis Wade, a senior science adviser at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

"It's really the systematic approach that's been taken," said Wade, a former director for mining safety research at the institute.

Government inspections have played a part; the Sago Mine, where Monday's explosion happened, was in the middle of one such inspection. Last year, it was cited for more than 200 violations, none of them apparently major.

A gradual shift from underground mines to methods that extract coal from the surface — like strip mining — has also contributed to the trend. In West Virginia, underground coal production has fallen by one-third in the past decade. At the same time, production of surface-mined coal increased slightly.

Coal miners have toiled in fear of explosions since the 19th century. Methane gas leaking from the coal formations can ignite unexpectedly; airborne coal dust produced by mining operations also can be highly flammable.

In the early years of the 20th century, mine explosions commonly caused spectacular accidents with hundreds of fatalities. On May 1, 1900, 200 miners were killed by an explosion at the Winter Quarters No. 4 mine near Scofield, Utah. On Dec. 6, 1907, a series of explosions at two connected mines in Monongah, W.Va., killed 362. Less than two weeks later, 239 miners died after an explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pa. Two years later a fire at a mine in Cherry, Ill., killed 259.

While they once relied on caged canaries as indicators of high methane levels — the birds are extremely sensitive to the gas — mines now employ networks of electronic sensors. Researchers at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health are testing a helmet-mounted methane sensor.

Though technology has advanced over the years, Wade said, it is increased government regulation, especially mine safety legislation passed in 1969, that has largely put an end to major coal mining disasters. The most recent accident to kill more than five miners was a September 2001 explosion in Alabama that resulted in 13 deaths.