As federal mine safety officials looked for a cause to Wednesday's fiery coal mine explosion that left 10 miners dead, doctors and clergy tried to console grieving families and friends.
The accident claimed the highest death toll since 27 miners died in the Wilberg Mine disaster near Price, Utah, on Dec. 19, 1984, said Frank O'Gorman, a Mine Safety and Health Administration spokesman.At Union County Methodist Hospital in the adjacent county, a disaster plan was implemented, calling in off-duty doctors, nurses and ministers to help counsel family members.
"All I could do was just listen to them and let them cry," said the Rev. Brad Whistle of St. Ann's Catholic Church in Morganfield. "Despair is despair. I just listened to them."
"We always live under the danger that there is something there that could take us out of this world," said the Rev. Bobby Joe Williamson, pastor of the New Harmony Rock Springs Baptist Church in Wheatcroft.
"All we could do now was pray for the families, that they be sustained and well taken care of. We can't change anything," said Williamson.
One of the victims, foreman Roger Clifford, 32, of Morganfield, left a wife and two small sons, said his brother, Randy.
"All of his men respected him," he said. `They thought a lot of him." His voice faltering, he added, "You just couldn't beat him."
Tony Hawkins, who was installing support timbers in the mine about a half mile from the explosion Wednesday morning, said the explosion "was just scary. It was just a big boom. The ears popped and that was it. The dirt flew. My knees started shaking."
Hawkins said he and others helped to evacuate some miners who scrambled out of the smoky blast site about 1,000 feet underground in the Pyro Mining Co.'s William Station Mine.
By late Wednesday, rescue teams had removed 10 bodies, which were taken to the state medical examiner's office for autopsies.
Fourteen to 15 miners were in the immediate area when a jet of flame erupted, said Jim Greenlee, an executive vice president of Pyro's parent company, Costain Coal Inc.
Officials believe some of the victims survived the explosion "and succumbed to the smoke and dust," Costain President Charles Schulties said. Some miners were wearing self-rescuing units, devices miners carry on their belts to filter out poisonous carbon monoxide in emergencies.
Paul Tompkins, Webster County deputy coroner, said that four of the 10 victims sustained first-degree burns. The rest were not burned.
Schulties said it was reasonable to believe that something sparked a buildup of methane, an explosive gas that occurs naturally in coal seams and that mine operators are required to ventilate. He acknowledged that the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration cited the mine about two months ago for high levels of methane.