Drennen, Virginia — Emergency responders were hoping to use an underwater drone Sunday to reach a miner trapped deep in a flooded coal mine in West Virginia, authorities said.
The mining crew ran into an unidentified pocket of water Saturday about three-quarters of a mile away at the Rolling Thunder Mine near Drennen, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of the state capital, Charleston, Nicholas County Commissioner Garrett Cole said in a Facebook post.
All other miners in the team were identified after the prefectural emergency department was informed of the incident at around 1:30 pm on Saturday afternoon. It was not clear how extensive the flooding was inland.
West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey said in a statement that the mine was flooded after an old mine wall was “compromised,” and that several state agencies are participating in the response, which includes pumping water out of the flooded portion.
Rolling Thunder is one of 11 underground mines operated by Tennessee-based Alpha Metallurgical Resources Inc. in West Virginia. The company also operates four surface mines in the state, as well as three underground mines and one surface mine in Virginia.
A report prepared in February for Alpha by engineering consulting firm Marshall Miller & Associates said the area had been “extensively explored” by previous mine owners, generating a “significant amount of historical data” which Alpha had examined in assessing its potential for coal production.
The same report says the Rolling Thunder coal seam runs along and below the TwentyMile Creek drainage, but said there are “no significant hydrological concerns” about drilling for more coal on extensively mined property.