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8 Die in Kentucky mine
blast
Topmost, Ky (upi)- Rescue teams
went a half-mile into an explosion-wracked coal mine shaft today to retrieve the bodies of eight men killed by
a blast that
officials say may have been caused by dynamite.
Only one man working at the Adkins Coal Co. No. 18 mine during
the afternoon
shift Monday survived. Roy Conley, the operator of a scooping
vehicle, had left
the mine to charge a battery. The bodies, brought to the surface
about 3 a.m.,
were taken to a make-shift morgue in a shack near the mine. Kentucky
State
Police spokesman Bill Riley said they were soon identified by
family members.
THE VICTIMS were Bob Slone, 39 Topmost;
Roy Perry,22 Pine Top; his
brother Clarence Perry,28 Pine Top; Dillard Ashley, 40 Mousie; James
Gibson,
24 Pippa Passes; Keith Crager, 25 Hueysville; Tommy Centers, 31
Vicco, and
David Slone, 25 Kite. Riley said the Slones are related but he
didn't know how.
All were from Knott or surrounding eastern Kentucky counties.
According to
James Boyd, a United Mine Workers safety inspector from District 30
based
at Pikeville, mineral rights at the Adkins mine are leased from the
Island Creek Coal co, in Lexington, a subsidiary of Occidental
Petroleum. Willard Stanley
who runs the state Department of Mines and Minerals said, We have no
idea what caused the explosion. We are going to release a report at noon
Wednesday. We want to look at the containers the men were riding in.
Though Stanley
withheld his opinion pending a formal inquiry, he had earlier said
explosives were
suspected and dozens of miners milling at the scene said they
believed too much dynamite was in the mine. Rescue Crews located the bodies- first a
group of five men then two more- around 19 p.m. EST. Shortly
after midnight they found the
eighth. Conley's brother said Roy had been working a scoop when the
blast occurred
about 3 p. m. EST. He backed the shovel up and as soon as he left
the entrance the
mine exploded, said Wesley Conley. According to several miners at
the site, Conley
left the mine to charge a battery. Several of those who gathered at
the mine- about
a mile up a hill off the road to Topmost in Knott County- said
methane gas seldom
collected in serious concentrations because of the mine's altitude.
This was certainly no gas explosion said Otis Hayes, 60 a former
miner from Pikeville, Ky who joined onlookers from West Virginia and
other Kentucky mining towns.
Those mines just haven't got that much accumulation of gas. At 1:15
a.m. the
Rev. Charles N. Wilcox walked into the school two miles from the
mine and
said all eight bodies have been found and there are no survivors.
The announcement was met with silence. |
This newspaper article was found in the belonging of Melba
Amburgey Givens Submitted by Donald Givens
August 9, 2003
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