CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The body of a coal miner was found early Thursday in a mine that flooded in southern West Virginia, Gov. Patrick Morrisey said.
Crews found the body inside Alpha Metallurgical Resources Inc.’s Rolling Thunder Mine near Belva, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of the state capital of Charleston.
A mining crew had hit an unknown pocket of water last Saturday about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) into the mine, which flooded after an old mine wall “was compromised,” Gov. Patrick Morrisey said. More than a dozen other miners were accounted for after the accident was reported.
The death is the third at an Alpha facility in West Virginia this year. Both of the others occurred in nearby Raleigh County: An elevator being tested struck a miner on a first-floor platform in August at Alpha subsidiary Marfork Coal’s processing facility, and a coal seam fell on a contractor in February at Alpha’s Black Eagle underground operation, according to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.
