Crews desperately continued to remove massive amounts of water in an attempt to locate a worker trapped inside a flooded coal mine in West Virginia as work entered its fifth day on Wednesday.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey said efforts by crews about three-quarters of a mile away at the Rolling Thunder mine were still a rescue. The machines pump water at a rate of 6,000 gallons (22,712 liters) per minute, he said. That’s enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in less than two hours.
“I think people are doing everything imaginable,” Morrissey said. “There’s no quit in anyone here.”
Mining crew An unidentified pocket of water struck on Saturday About three-quarters of a mile inside the mine near Belva, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of the state capital, Charleston. The mine was flooded after an old mine wall was “compromised,” Morrissey said, and several government agencies were involved in the response.
Other miners were identified after the incident was reported. Morrissey said he did not have an estimate of the number of crews working in the rescue effort inside the mine, but “there’s obviously a lot of machinery pulling water out.”
“There is a lot of water that has been drained, but there is also a tremendous amount of water that still needs to be drained,” he said.
In addition, holes were drilled in the mine, and diving teams were present at the site, the governor said. The National Cave Rescue Committee provided surplus Army telephones connected to wires that could travel great distances to enable better underground communication.
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.
The abandoned mine next to Rolling Thunder was worked on in the 1930s and 1940s, Morrissey said.
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.
The area is famous for its coal seams and tourism. The nearby Gauley River is popular for its fall whitewater rafting season, and the picturesque New River Gorge National Park to the south is the country’s newest national park.
The closest business to the mine in the sparsely populated rural area is a small shop located about 15 minutes up the winding road leading to the mine. Two businesses about 30 minutes away supplied food to rescue crews, and Nicholas County Commissioner Garrett Cole said the mine company also brought a food truck.
“The miners are part of the family,” Morrissey said. “They’ve contributed so much to West Virginia. That’s part of the fabric of our state. When times are tough, people step up and offer their services. I think that’s what happens here.”
Cole reminded concerned residents of a 1968 incident in the same county in which miners working for Gauley Coal and Coke in Hominy Falls accidentally tunneled into an unmarked abandoned mine nearby, sinking their operations. Four men died, but 15 miners were pulled to the surface five days later and six others were rescued inside the mine 10 days later.
In 2002 in southwestern Pennsylvania, nine miners were subsequently rescued Spend more than three days Trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine.
“Miracles can happen – have faith!” Cole wrote on Facebook.
Four of the six deaths reported in U.S. coal mines this year occurred in West Virginia. One was at Alpha Metallurgical’s Black Eagle operation in nearby Raleigh County in February. A contractor was killed when a piece of coal fell on him, according to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.