Jubilation, then horror

SAGO, W. Va. -- In a staggering development, family members said mining officials revealed early this morning that 12 men died in an explosion Monday in a coal mine.

Only three hours before the announcement, the families and friends had been told that 12 miners survived. Joyous celebrations and hymns of praise greeted the erroneous news.

It was later learned that only one man was pulled from the Sago Mine alive. Hospital officials said the man, identified as Randal McCloy, was in critical condition.

The rollercoaster of events stunned the many sons, daughters, and spouses who had waited 41 hours for information about their loved ones.

The tragic news was delivered by International Coal Group chief executive Ben Hatfield to the family members gathered at Sago Baptist Church.

''They came down and said they didn't have the good news they thought they had," Sam Lance, a relative of one miner, Martin Bennett, told CNN. ''Everyone is stunned and sick to their stomachs."

At a news conference, Hatfield explained the mistake: ''The initial report from the rescue team to the command center indicated multiple survivors. That information spread like wildfire, because it had come from the command center. It quickly got out of control."

After company officials revealed the news, screaming and fighting broke out at the church.

Hours earlier, the scene at the church was one of unbridled joy.

Church bells rang out. Cries of joy filled the rooms.

''Miracles happen in West Virginia, and today we got one," Charlotte Weaver, wife of trapped miner Jack Weaver, had exclaimed.

The false news had been delivered through a phone call to the church. The mining company had said 12 survivors were found, a union official had told one of the family members on that phone call.

Even government officials had confirmed the early reports.

Governor Joe Manchin of West Virginia had said he had been told 12 of the miners survived the disaster. US Representative Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, among the officials gathering near the mine, had said 12 miners were brought out alive.

The whipsaw of news and emotions followed two days of tense waiting.

Friends and relatives of the missing miners had spent Monday and yesterday gathered near the mine as they awaited word from rescue workers, who drilled holes to check the air and to look for signs of life amid the rain and the mud that complicated search efforts.

Some had huddled around campfires in the gloomy rain, then moved inside the church, where they sang religious songs, prayed, and comforted one another in preparation for the worst.

As the hours passed, hope had dwindled. Some family members inside the church fainted from the grief and anxiety, said Denny Hodges, a Red Cross volunteer who comforted the families inside the church.

Then during the early evening yesterday, it was revealed that one body had been found.

The discovery brought despair to family and friends in the close-knit community, as each wondered who had lost a loved one, Hodges said. But the fact that the unidentified man was not near any of the other missing miners also heartened the group.

Hatfield said the man's body was recovered more than 11,000 feet inside the mine shaft.

Around-the-clock rescue attempts had begun shortly after an explosion in the mine at 6:40 a.m. Monday.

The blast, which happened as the mine returned to operation after the holidays, left the 13 miners stranded about 260 feet below the surface, between 11,000 and 13,000 feet down a sloping shaft.

As rescuers tunneled into the mineshaft, racing against time, attention turned to the Sago Mine's history of safety violations -- and questions about the White House's commitment to mining safety.

Federal records have found that the mine's injury rate was three times the national average, and officials reported 20 partial roof collapses last year.

Also last year, federal officials cited the mine's owners, International Coal Group, for alleged shortcomings in safety planning, including allegations of inadequate safeguards against cave-ins and an insufficient ventilation plan to control methane and breathable coal dust. Both conditions can cause explosions.

The owners, International Coal Group Inc., which bought the mine in November after a previous owner declared bankruptcy, said the mine is safe. The cause of the explosion and partial collapse, however, may not be known for days.

Hatfield had said the mine was safe.

''We're not going to get into the violation history or pointing fingers," he told reporters earlier in the day. ''Our focus is on getting these men out safely, and that's all we're going to aim at."

But as the rescue effort was underway, questions were raised about mining safety, and the tragedy seems likely to reignite debates in Washington over mine safety.

Democrats say the Bush administration's enforcement of mining safety and environmental regulations must come under scrutiny. The administration has called for cuts to the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and the agency has shed about 120 coal-industry enforcement jobs since 2002, according to statistics compiled by Democratic congressional aides.

After President Bush took office in 2001, the administration pulled back a series of regulations proposed under President Clinton, including the requirement to upgrade miners' emergency respiratory devices and to add more mine rescue teams.

Three years ago, the White House wanted to increase the legal level of breathable dust that miners could be exposed to, but it backed away in the face of congressional opposition. And Democrats have criticized Bush administration officials for going after relatively small fines against offenders; of the 208 citations issued at Sago Mine, nearly half carried the minimum fine of $60, and none amounted to more than $900.

The intense rescue efforts included two rescue crews and a search robot equipped with cameras. They made slow progress drilling rescue tunnels into the Sago Mine. But their efforts were hampered by wet ground and concerns about deadly gases building up inside.

Holes drilled into the mine found carbon monoxide levels at three times the safest maximum level for breathing -- potentially lethal for the miners, as well as a hazard to rescue workers.

Earlier yesterday, officials and the miners' friends and family members had held out hope that the men might somehow have found a pocket of breathable air inside the mine or another means of staying alive in dire straits.

A tiny camera threaded into the mine Monday seemed to reflect minimal structural damage from the explosion, stoking optimism that the miners might have survived the blast.

''We believe in miracles, and we're hoping for that miracle," Governor Joe Manchin had said.

Klein reported from Washington, Milligan from Sago. Material from wire services was also included.