Though names have not been released, three members of one family all died in the disaster, Manchin said. Another member of the family was also in the mine, but survived, he said. That man lost his son, nephew and older brother, said Manchin, who lost an uncle in the Farmington Mine disaster in 1968.
One of the four men still missing was believed to be running the longwall miner deep in the mine, Manchin said. The others were believed to be in another section, deep in the mine.
Giannato said that some emergency breathing devices were missing from a storage cache deep in the mine. Rescuers are operating under the assumption that trapped miners may have grabbed those to help them survive until help arrived, he said.
The accident occurred at about 3 p.m. at Massey Energy subsidiary Performance Coal Co.'s Upper Big Branch Mine-South.
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A Sumatra earthquake of 7.8 hit today, but evidently the tsunami warning has been lifted.
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