What a cruel, cruel mistake to have made.
Father in Heaven, please give these people the strength, and your will be done. Amen.
(confused, saddened. edited).
Psalm 100
Call out to the Almighty
Everyone on earth!
Serve God with gladness.
Come before Him with joyous song!
Know that the Almighty, He is God.
It is He who made us and we are His,
His nation and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving.
Enter His courts with praise.
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
The Almighty is good.
His loving-kindness endures forever.
And His faithfulness continues
From generation to generation.
Very sad again. Dangit.
With only one reported survivor, let’s keep the families, and all affected by these losses, in thoughts and prayers.
I’m seeing mixed reactions.
The confusion is due to the first report being in error. (misinterpreted communication)
There was, in fact, only one survivor, and 12 deaths.
Maybe Brian can correct his topic heading.
The Globeandmail says 12 alive.
TheAge says that report was wrong.
CNN says 12 have died.
msnbc says 12 have died.
Unimaginably sad.
Corrrected, sadly.
We were watching CNN last night when the “mistake” was reported. A woman with two kids just ran up to the on-camera reporter and told him “now they’re saying all but one are dead! People are rioting in the church!” The reporter was absolutely stunned…as were we all, I think.
What’s getting me now is the mining company is trying to pass the buck…claiming that someone “intercepted cell phone conversations” or (in another account) “overheard open communications and phoned the church”…but some of the family members are saying they were told by the fellow who’s been the mining company spokesman all along (Hatfield, I think) that there were 12 survivors. Now, aside from the 208 safety violations that company has been charged with in regards to that particular mine (including several that could have cause this explosion) we have someone at the mining company who cruelly raised people’s hopes and allowed them to celebrate for more than three hours before telling them the truth.
The more things change, the more they stay the same, I guess.
Redwolf
From an AP report at 12:03 PM (EST) today: (emphasis mine)
As an ambulance drove away from the mine carrying what families believed was the first survivor, they applauded, not yet knowing there were no others.
Though the governor announced that there were 12 survivors, he later indicated he was uncertain about the news.
Ben Hatfield, chief executive of mine owner International Coal Group (ICO), blamed the wrong information on a “miscommunication.” The news spread after people overheard cell phone calls, he said. In reality, rescuers had only confirmed finding 12 miners and were checking their vital signs. At least two family members in the church said they received cell phone calls from a mine foreman.
“That information spread like wildfire, because it had come from the command center,” he said.
I have to wonder why the comms between the rescue team and command center wouldn’t be kept a little closer to the vest until all reports and information from the scene was confirmed. Given the high tension and emotional state of the people there, that should have been a top priority - to get things right.
One could also say that the reporters on the scene, in a rush to get the ‘big scoop’, were too quick to report without first confirming the reports.
Still, it’s easy to point fingers and place blame, what’s more important is to keep the prayers going for those that did not survive, and for their families, too. And of course, prayers for the lone survivor, Mr. McCloy. He’s still in critical condition, and hopefully he will not suffer from ‘survivor’s guilt’.
unfortunately, with the prevalence of cell phones, blackberries, etc. - this is going to happen more and more frequently. While these can be life saving conveniences, they can also spread rumors very quickly.
On another part of the story… putting on my safety coordinator hat here a second:
Reports of safety incidents may actually be good things, not bad. I haven’t seen details of this yet, so I am just speculating here.
I’ve read that this particular company took over the mining operation in the past year. And that there was a huge increase in incident reporting.
This is a common and known occurance when a safety program is implimented. Things that wouldn’t have been reported before the plan is put in place are. Workers are more aware of what makes up an incident, and the importance of reporting them. And things like near misses - that routinely weren’t reported before, are.
Not saying that this is what was happening in this case, but until more information is available, just be aware that an increase in the incidents reported, in and of itself, is NOT a reason to say that the mine was being run unsafely.
Good points about the safety issues, Missy.
RE: the rumors that spread like wildfire, and the technology to spread them… I was thinking about the time a guy named Welles did his radio broadcast about Mars attacking Earth. (That was 1938). 
I tend to think that the horrible mistake really was some sort of goof-up of someone hearing one end of a cell phone conversation or something and misinterpreting what he heard. It could have been someone authorized to be in the area and who should not have passed on what he overheard—I don’t know. I think people will be more careful about things like this, but I can’t say I think the company was really trying to jerk those people around. I don’t understand why they didn’t tell the people sooner that they didn’t know the condition of the men, once they became aware of the rumor, but I just can’t think it was out of intentional cruelty. I think probably it was a poor decision made by very tired people or something.
I don’t understand why they didn’t tell the people sooner that they didn’t know the condition of the men, once they became aware of the rumor,
I’ve got a pretty good guess.
Coal miners and mine operators are natural adversaries, particularly in coal towns where there are generations of miners. They have long memories.
Memories that include-
Miners housed in company owned houses.
Widows and children who were given only a day or two to move out when their miner husbands were killed in the mines.
Payment not in US dollars but in “company scrip” which could only be spent at the “company store”.
The man who’s job was to sit at the mouth of the mine, to be ready at a moment’s notice to replace any man killed during a shift, so as not to lose production.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the mine wars over unionization.
Why didn’t they correct the mistake sooner?
They were trying to figure out how to keep this disaster from becoming even worse.
We were printing the paper last night (I’m a press operator for the Twin Falls Times News) and one of the front people came back and asked me how far into the run we were. We were not quite half way I told him. I told the lead pressman and he went to find out why he needed to know that.
About a minute later he came running back in and stopped the press. Our lead story was the “saved” minors and since the story changed and was of such significance we changed the story and finished the run. I am sure papers all across the country were caught by this.
I do not have any opinions one way or the other regarding how or why the situation was handled the way it was. I really feel for the families though.
edit: I believe it was 13 total minors with one surviving at the time of the story.
This is terribly sad.
I think one possible reason for the mistaken report getting circulated was an understandable desire to bring the relatives good news. That said, surely someone should have realised quickly that there was insufficient evidence. Perhaps, once the news was out, the company preferred to wait in hope rather than correct the report before reliable information became available.
I can certainly confirm Cowtime’s reflections. I live half way up the mountain that produced Australia’s largest mining disaster, in fact the single incident responsible for the largest peace time loss of life in Australia’s history. Nobody whose family has lived in this region for 100 years would not have lost a relative in that disaster. Mining communities do indeed have long memories and with good reason.
In December of '04, while the news focused on the tsunami, around 130 people died in a mining disaster in China. I don’t recall seeing a single blurb about it here in the states.
As horrible as that situation must have been to the people involved I really think it would be impossible to report or NOTICE EVERY foreign, heck domestic, regional or national event in every reporting market. There are only so much time and resources available.
As you said, there was an event of infinately larger proportions on an international basis that drew our attention. I am certain that the incident you referred to was reported on a more regional level, as well it should have been.
I actually DID see an article on the Chinese mine disaster last year, but, as others have noted, the overwhelming scale of the tsunami pushed virtually everything else to the side. That tends to happen when you have a disaster of such major proportions.
Redwolf
The adversarial relationship between the miners and the mine company was inevitable, given that the head mine company guy is named Hatfield and the surviving miner is named McCloy?