Coal Mine Explosion in West Virginia

West Virginia coal mine explosion kills 25.

An explosion rocked a remote coal mine with a history of safety problems Monday, killing 12 workers and trapping others thousands of feet underground.

Though the cause of the blast was not known, Massey Energy's sprawling Upper Big Branch mine has a history of violations for not properly ventilating highly combustible methane gas, safety officials said.

Nine miners were leaving on a vehicle that takes them in and out of the long shaft, when a crew ahead of the them felt a blast of air and went back to investigate, said Kevin Stricklin, an administrator for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

They found nine workers, seven of whom were dead. Two others were injured. Two other nine-person crews and a safety inspector who had been working alone were believed trapped, perhaps about a mile and a half underground, said Stricklin.

MSHA officials didn't yet know what caused the blast, but federal records say the Eagle coal seam 30 miles south of Charleston releases up to 2 million cubic feet of methane gas into the mine every 24 hours, which is a large amount, said Dennis O'Dell, health and safety director for the United Mine Workers labor union.

In 2006, 12 miners died in a methane explosion at the Sago Mine in West Virginia.

In the past year, federal inspectors have cited Massey and fined the company more than $382,000 for repeated, serious violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at the mine run by subsidiary Performance Coal.

The mine is located in a swath of Raleigh and Boone counties that includes a string of mine operations in the heart of coal country.

"If you're from here, you're part of a coal-mining family," Grace Lafferty of nearby Harper told the Charleston Gazette. The mine has about 200 employees, most working underground.

A bulk of the coal is removed with a machine called a longwall miner. Hydraulic roof supports shield the miners and equipment as the machines cut deeper into the mountain, with the roof in the mined-out areas caving in by design after workers move on, according to Massey's Web site.

Massey Energy ranks among the nation's top five coal producers and is among the industry's most profitable. The MSHA fined Massey a then-record $1.5 million for 25 violations that inspectors concluded contributed to the deaths of two miners trapped in a fire at a different mine in January 2006.