Mine seal is topic of interviews

The blocks didn't stand up to a gas explosion.
HARLAN, Ky. (AP) -- A mine technician said Thursday he had no training when he helped build a wall to seal poisonous gas in an abandoned shaft at a southeastern Kentucky mine three months before five workers were killed in an explosion.
Unlike conventional seals made of concrete, the walls built at the Kentucky Darby Mine No. 1 were made with lightweight fiberglass blocks, and are a major part of the investigation into the May 20 blast.
Officials have said the explosion was fueled by methane gas and that the blocks did not withstand the blast.
Technician Tony Bledsoe, who was one of 26 Kentucky Darby LLC employees subpoenaed by state and federal officials for closed-door interviews this week, said he had worried about the unconventional seals.
"We weren't told how to build them," he said. "Our boss, he didn't stick around when we were building them."
He added that investigators at the hearing asked whether he and two other workers dug out a 4-inch slot into the coal wall and the ground to set the blocks into. He said he told them the workers had not.
Broken blocks
Bledsoe also recalled that many of the blocks were broken when they were delivered. "The thing about mines -- you use what they give you," Bledsoe said after meeting with investigators.
Another miner, Kevin Dixon, said he helped build two of the three seals destroyed in the blast. He said he and the other workers on the second shift learned how to construct the seals as they worked alongside their superintendent, Amon "Cotton" Brock, one of the men killed.
"If you're in the coal mine for 10 years, common sense tells you how to build them," said Dixon, who has worked in coals mines for a decade.
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