Investigators say lightning bolt caused fatal coal mine blast

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Nearly a year after the disaster, state investigators have concluded that the Sago Mine explosion that left 12 miners dead was caused by a lightning bolt that ignited methane gas underground, a union official said.

The mine's owner, International Coal Group Inc., ICG, has argued since March that lightning was to blame for the Jan. 2 blast, a theory critics of the company have disputed.

The report is to be released Monday, but United Mine Workers officials who helped in the investigation have been briefed on it, Dennis O'Dell, the union's health and safety director, said Wednesday.

The chief of the state's mine safety agency did not immediately return a call for comment. ICG declined to comment.

Some authorities have theorized that the metal housing of a natural gas well near the mine conducted the electrical charge from the lightning into the ground.

One miner was killed in the blast and 11 others died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the more than 40 hours it took rescuers to reach them. Only one trapped miner, Randal McCloy Jr., survived.

A report issued by an adviser to Governor Joe Manchin, former federal Mine Safety and Health Administration chief J. Davitt McAteer, said International Coal Group failed to properly ground the electrical systems and install arrestors at some locations as required by law.