Anger As Hopes for Trapped Miners Dashed

Just one man is now known to have survived an explosion that trapped 13 miners in the Sago mine in West Virginia, contradicting earlier reports that 12 of them had been found alive.

Families learned of the deaths from mine officials more than three hours after Governor Joe Manchin said he had been told 12 of the miners survived the disaster. Mr Manchin described the confusion over the number of deaths as "heart-wrenching" and said it was the wrong time to blame anyone for the earlier miscommunication that only one of the miners had died.

Ben Hatfield, the chief executive officer of the International Coal Group which owns the mine, said the sole survivor of the disaster, Randal McCloy, had been taken to hospital in a serious condition.

Chaos and fighting broke out when it emerged that earlier reports had raised false hopes for relatives of the miners gathered at the Sago Baptist church. John Groves, whose brother Jerry Groves was one of the trapped miners, said Mr Hatfield had told them that "there had been a lack of communication, that what we were told was wrong and that only one survived."

"The initial report from the rescue team to the command centre indicated multiple survivors," Mr Hatfield said during a news conference. "That information spread like wildfire, because it had come from the command centre. It quickly got out of control." Mr Hatfield said the company had waited to correct the information until it knew more about the rescue.

One family member said a mine foreman called relatives at the church, saying the miners had been found alive. Bells rang out at the church and some relatives ran out of the building screaming in delight at the news. One relative shouted: "They're alive! They're alive!". A group of several hundred relatives broke into a chorus of the hymn How Great Thou Art.

State governor Joe Manchin, who had yesterday said he was hoping for a miracle as the search became more desperate, had told reporters: "They told us they have 12 alive. We have some people that are going to need some medical attention."

Hopes had been fading of finding anyone alive after mine officials revealed yesterday that carbon monoxide levels were more than three times over the safe levels. All of the initial attempts to find signs of life by pushing cameras through holes drilled from the surface and from a robotic device had been unsuccessful. It was thought the carbon monoxide had built up as a by-product of the unexplained explosion. Most explosions in coal mines are caused by a build up of methane gas.