Mourning begins as W.Va. mine search resumes

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By VICKI SMITH and LAWRENCE MESSINA

MONTCOAL, W.Va. (AP) - Grieving relatives began burying victims of the Upper Big Branch coal mine disaster Friday as rescue crews ventured back into the blast-damaged shaft for another agonizingly slow, dangerous and probably hopeless search for survivors.

It was their fourth attempt to find the four miners missing since Monday's explosion killed 25 others in the nation's worst underground disaster since at least 1984. During the previous rescue attempts, searchers were forced to withdraw by dangerous gases and the risk of fire or explosion.

"We are praying for a miracle," President Barack Obama said in Washington.

Rescuers acknowledged that was what it would take for the miners to have made it to a refuge chamber stocked with food, water and enough oxygen for several days.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20100409/D9EVPKMO0.html

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Travis McKinney is comforted by Cheyanne Graybeal as they view the casket of Travis' grandfather, Benny Ray Willingham, at Mullens Pentecostal Holiness Church in Mullens, W.Va., Friday, April 9, 2010, during a funeral service. Benny Ray Willingham was among those killed in an explosion at Massey Energy Co.'s Upper Big Branch mine in (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

[rocktivity]

1. I heard the Westboro Baptist Church might be showing up for the funerals

x(
rocktivity

[1620rock]

2. Then they may get the ass-kicking so long overdue.

[Lucky Luciano]

3. I really hope you have heard wrong.

I wouldn't even know where to begin if that truly evil group showed up.