A flood inside a coal mine in West Virginia has trapped a coal miner inside
DRENNEN, W.Va. — Rescuers hoped to use an underwater drone Sunday to reach a miner trapped at the bottom of a flooded coal mine in West Virginia, authorities said.
A mining crew struck an unknown pocket of water Saturday about three-quarters of a mile from the Rolling Thunder Mine near Drennen, about 50 miles east of the state capital of Charleston, Nicholas County Commissioner Garrett Cole said in a Facebook post.
All other juveniles on the team were accounted for after the accident was reported to the county’s emergency management department around 1:30 p.m. Saturday. It is not clear how extensive the flooding is inside.
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said in a statement that the mine was flooded after an old mine wall was “compromised” and that several state agencies are involved in the response, which includes pumping water from the flooded section.
Rolling Thunder is one of 11 underground mines operated in West Virginia by Tennessee-based Alpha Metallurgical Resources Inc. 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 an engineering consultancy, Marshall Miller & Associates, said the area had been “extensively explored” by previous mine owners, generating “a significant amount of historical data” which Alpha reviewed to assess its coal production potential.
The same report says the Rolling Thunder coal seam extends along and below the TwentyMile Creek drainage, but says there are “no significant hydrologic concerns” about mining more coal on the largely mined property.
