The Saga incident my have been the most flagrant example

[ladjf]

of malfeasance in the history of American mining. All we see in the news it interviews with the grieving families and the media covering it's ass.

What about the fact that the miners were with 2,000 of good air, or that there was no debris blocking the tunnel? What about the fact that they could have simply walked out? Or, that the regular mine shuttle cart could have been driven right up to where they were? They could have been rescued within an hour.

Why were there no auxiliary breathing and first aid caches placed along the tunnel route? (this measure was being practiced in America at least as early as 1912.)

Why wasn't an adequately designed robot-probe vehicle prep laced at the mine entrance?

Why weren't multiple air holes drilled to the miners? (Only 260 deep)

Why aren't criminal charges being leveled at the mine ownership for negligence?

These are the questions we should be hearing about but we only get the "human interest" angles. The only information we've been given is that "miners or proud people" and that they put their faith in the Lord.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. What about those 200 safety violations in the last year that we

heard about at first? Does anyone know what those violations were for? I haven't heard them mentioned in the past few days.

[ladjf]

3. I should have added those to my list. thanks.

[Trevelyan]

2. You make some good points but I don't understand the first

paragraph about the miners.

Did you mean withIN 2000 feet(?) of good air? Why didn't they walk out if there was no debris and the regular mine shuttle cart??

I have read that this mine was one of the many with hundreds of violations that the Mining industry has been allowed to get away with and the the head was, like Brownie, totally unqualified. Do you have any references to your points. I would like to write the media about this preventable tragedy.

[ladjf]

4. Excuse me Treve. I might have been too brief by not clarifying

the points.

On January 7th, I read an article in the Atlanta Journal Constitution (maybe the 6th) that stated that the miners were only 2,000 feet away from good air when the holed up at their location. The article also stated that there was no debris blocking the tunnel so that the miners could have walked out unassisted. (Some other posters found the article on the INTERNET but I don't have the URL)

If the statements in the article are true, and I've seen nothing to contradict it, then a single rescuer could have driven the normal rail shuttle right down to where the miners were holed up. Or, if they feared explosion, one rescuer or a party of people could have simply walked straight to their location.

My other remarks:

Robot-probe: A well designed roving vehicle preplace at the mine entrance 24/7. The device would have been able to go directly to the location of the miners dragging an umbilical with air, telephone, TV,water and infra-red with NO risk to anyone.

2,000 ft is about 900 steps. Further, if the "good air" was 2,000 ft, that would probably mean that by the time they had walked 500 ft or so, their sensors would have indicated that the air quality was improving.

I don't fault the miners themselves for after all they had been involved in a very scary explosion and did what their manual said to do. I fault those on the surface who should have done the preplanning and who should have been willing to take at least some risk in order to save those people. The rescuers knew the exact air quality within a few hours. They knew that the miners were not going to be able to last it out. Something had to be done immediately.

Further, there were no physicians in the rescue party. None of the rescuers was qualified to make any decisions about whether or not the people were alive or dead. With their retarded heart rates and lowered temps, it's likely that life signs would not have been apparent to the rescuers.

Please write your letters to as many papers as you can. This was an awful and senseless loss of life and a perfect example of how fascism-corporations are exploiting our people for raw, bottom line profit.