Two miners killed in accident at Kentucky coal mine

Source: Reuters

Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:13pm EDT

(Reuters) - Two workers at a surface coal mine in Centertown, Kentucky died on Friday when a portion of the mine face collapsed on their truck.

Charles Shields, director of the Ohio County Emergency Management Agency, said rescue workers had recovered the men's bodies and that federal safety officials were opening an accident investigation.

The two men were employed by a blasting crew and were driving a truck near the so-called "high wall" of the coal mine early on Friday when a rock fell and trapped them in the vehicle, Shields said.

The identities of the victims were not immediately available.

(Writing by James B. Kelleher; Editing by Greg McCune)

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/28/us-kentucky-miners-trapped-idUSTRE79R3RO20111028

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Mine Safety and Health Administration

Yeah, sure, ya betcha thar Charley.


Radioactive Wolves on Nature
Sunday, October 23 at 8:00 p.m.

What happens to nature after a nuclear accident, and how does wildlife cope with the world it inherits after the human inhabitants have fled? That is the provocative subject of "Radioactive Wolves," the 30th season premiere of "Nature." Harry Smith narrates.



The season opener examines the health of wildlife populations in Chernobyl’s exclusion zone, the area around the reactor that remains too dangerously radioactive for human habitation 25 years after the meltdown of the nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986.

Focusing on the status of the native wolf population as an indicator of the effects of radioactivity across all of the contaminated countryside, scientists are piecing together a picture of the entire surviving ecosystem. This portrait of wildlife in the so-called “dead zone” provides a surprising “what if?” window into an apocalyptic future that exists today.

Pictured: Wolves in an abandoned village in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.


http://www.wgte.org/wgte/item.asp?item_id=10028

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The area around Chernobyl sure was green and lush with lots of wild life

please put a hardhat and join in working in the coal mine.

I bet they never got out of the Escalade with 'The Friends of Coal , plates.
RIP fellows.

http://www.armstrongcoal.com/officers-and-directors.html
http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/BREAKING_NEWS__2_Miners_Trapped_in_Western_KY_Coal_Mine_132778293.html?storySection=story
http://people.forbes.com/profile/j-hord-armstrong/36632
J. Hord Armstrong

Director
GeoMet, Inc.
Houston , TX
Sector: BASIC MATERIALS / Oil & Gas Drilling & Exploration
69 Years Old
J. Hord Armstrong, III has over 40 years of financial and operational experience in varied industries. Mr. Armstrong has served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Armstrong Land Company, LLC, a private company that owns coal reserves in the United States, since 2006. Mr. Armstrong founded D&K Healthcare Resources, Inc. in 1987, and served as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer until October 2005. From 1977 to 1987, Mr. Armstrong was with Arch Coal Inc. last serving as its Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Armstrong was First Vice President with White Weld & Company, an investment banking firm, from 1968 to 1977. Mr. Armstrong served for ten years as a member of the Board of Trustees of the St. Louis College of Pharmacy and has served as a director of Jones Pharma Incorporated. Mr. Armstrong formerly served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Pilot Fund, a registered investment company, and also formerly served as a Director of BHA, Inc., based in Kansas City, Missouri. Mr. Armstrong graduated from Williams College in 1963 and attended the New York University School of Business in 1965 and 1966

Coal company has numerous previous serious violations.
http://weku.fm/post/coal-company-has-previous-violations

"The company has been cited nearly 50 times in the past two years for work at other coal mines and quarries. Twenty-one of those violations were categorized as “significant and substantial” by MSHA."
Aren't they all.