Federal tests support lightning as cause of Sago mine explosion

Friday, December 22nd 2006, 2:47 pm

By: News On 6

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) Federal scientists have found new evidence supporting the widely held theory that lightning sparked a massive methane gas explosion that killed 12 coal men in the Sago Mine last January.

Sandia National Laboratories says its lightning experts spent 10 days testing at the mine and found that lightning can readily move through solid ground without a metal conductor.

``Energy can be transmitted deep into the mine without physical conductors being present on or near the surface,'' Sandia official Larry Schneider said in a news release. ``This has profound implications.''

While West Virginia investigators believe an unusually powerful lightning strike triggered the Jan. 2 blast, the state's report on the cause says additional testing is needed to determine how it traveled more than 2 miles to spark the explosion deep so inside the mine.

The explosion killed one miner and left 12 others trapped underground for more than 40 hours. By the time rescuers reached them, only one man was still alive _ the rest had succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning.

The mine's owner, Scott Depot-based International Coal Group Inc., reached the same conclusion as the state in March.

ICG has since adopted a policy of evacuating miners during electrical storms.

``We believe that eventually, the state and federal agencies will come to a similar conclusion,'' ICG President Ben Hatfield said.

The United Mine Workers labor union has questioned the state's findings, but says regulators should immediately begin ordering mines evacuated during storms.

The deaths at Sago remains the subject of an MSHA investigation. The agency says it has not pinpointed the cause of the explosion, but hopes to issue its accident report during the first three months of next year.

Sandia, a federally owned lab in Albuquerque, N.M., normally researches national security issues for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, but was hired by MSHA to research lightning at Sago.

MSHA spokesman Dirk Fillpot said the information Sandia released is based on an incomplete study. ``MSHA's investigation is ongoing and we will share the findings with the families of the fallen miners and the public as soon as it is complete.''