Mourning begins in coal-mining town

April 10, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

MONTCOAL, W.Va.

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.

On Friday morning, rescuers made their way about 1,000 feet underground and five miles into the mine to examine one of the chambers, but no one was inside, and smoke forced them to turn back before they could check a second one that would represent the last hope the four were alive.

The area was flushed with nitrogen, and crews headed back inside in the afternoon for what was likely to be a three- or four-hour trip to the chamber.

On Friday night, officials said they were close to a conclusion in the rescue attempt.

Gov. Joe Manchin said that finality could come by midnight. Crews were within 2,000 feet of the refuge chamber and prepared to make a run to the face to see if the miners were there.

Also Friday, more than 300 people packed the Mullens Pentecostal Holiness Church for the funeral of Benny Willingham, a 61-year-old miner who was five weeks from retiring when he died.

The Rev. Gary Pollard said the last time he saw Willingham, the miner’s words were almost prophetic: “If I die tomorrow, I’ve lived a good life.”