12 miners dead, 1 critical

[Raph's Girl]

Earlier tonight some of you might have heard that they found 12 miners from the W. Virigina coal mine explosion alive. Well the reports were wrong.

Earlier in the day they had found 1 of the bodies in a mining car. Then 2 hours ago all news reports stated that they found the remaining 12 alive.

And now they are saying that only one is alive. He is in critical condition.

The family members are of course peeved at having been lied to.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060104/...ltBHNlYwM3MTY-

Family members learned early Wednesday that 11 of the 12 coal miners who were initially thought to have survived an explosion in a coal mine have died.

Families learned of the deaths from mine officials more than three hours after Gov. Joe Manchin said he had been told 12 of the miners survived the disaster. The sole survivor of the disaster was hospitalized, a doctor said.

International Coal Group Chief Executive Officer Ben Hatfield told the families that only one miner, Randal McCloy, had survived the explosion.

Hatfield told the families gathered at the Sago Baptist Church that "there had been a lack of communication, that what we were told was wrong and that only one survived," said John Groves, whose brother Jerry Groves was one of the trapped miners.

At that point, chaos broke out in the church and a fight started.

Hatfield said the erroneous information spread rapidly when people overheard cell phone calls between rescuers and the rescue command center. In reality, rescuers had confirmed finding 12 miners and were checking their vital signs, he said.

"The initial report from the rescue team to the command center indicated multiple survivors," Hatfield said during a news conference. "That information spread like wildfire, because it had come from the command center. It quickly got out of control."

Hatfield said the company waited to correct the information until it knew more about the rescue.