11 Coal Miners Dead in Canada; 15 Still Missing

Rescue workers found the bodies of 11 coal miners Sunday and searched for 15 others trapped nearly a mile underground since Saturday morning when a gas explosion ripped through an eastern Canadian mine.

The workers held out little hope of finding the miners alive because the eruption at the Westray mine near Stellarton, a town in northern Nova Scotia, knocked out the ventilation system.

Officials at Curragh Resources, the mine’s owner and operator, said Sunday afternoon that it would take several hours to get through the debris blocking the shafts leading deeper into the mine and to restore ventilation.

Readings of the atmosphere deep in the mine showed dangerously high levels of methane gas and some carbon monoxide.

“With the experience we’ve had to date, we’re quite concerned,” Colin Benner, president of production at Curragh Resources, said at a news conference. “We don’t know what we’ll find.”

He said the explosion at 5:20 a.m. (1:20 a.m. PDT) Saturday was caused by a rapid buildup of methane gas that ignited before the mine’s sensors were triggered.

Flags were lowered at half-staff throughout Nova Scotia, which has a long history of mining disasters.

The bodies were taken from the Westray mine to a makeshift morgue at a hockey rink in nearby New Glasgow. Grieving relatives waited at a church to identify the bodies, while others waited for word of the missing miners and comforted each other at the Stellarton fire station.

“We’re not holding out that much hope,” said a man whose brother-in-law was among the missing, believed to be in two groups about 4,800 feet below the ground.

The 11 miners found earlier appeared to have been killed instantly by the explosion, Benner said.

“Like all people, especially in this area, I have a heart that aches for the families and for the men underground,” Nova Scotia Premier Don Cameron said at a news conference.

Cameron, whose government helped Curragh Resources to reopen the Westray mine last fall, said the mine may be permanently closed even if that spells more job losses for the hard-pressed region.

The 15 rescue teams had made no contact with the other miners in their 27 excursions since Saturday morning, Benner said. Their efforts to probe deeper had been slowed by poisonous fumes and debris.

Some rescue workers earlier said the blockage may have formed fresh air pockets in the mine shaft, but veteran miners were pessimistic.