Fifty-six years ago, Wednesday, massive explosions and fires engulfed Consolidation Coal Company’s Farmington #9 mine in Marion County. The West Virginia Encyclopedia described the scene this way: “A large cloud of black smoke and red flames spewed from the pit opening, rock and debris were catapulted from the mine.”
Twenty-one miners escaped, but another 78 men perished. Journalist Bonnie Stewart, in her 2011 book No. 9 about the disaster, wrote that some men were killed instantly where they stood, while others suffocated. The deceased miners left behind 144 children.
Rescuers risked their lives searching through the broken coal mine to try to find survivors. After nine days, the mine was sealed, even though all the bodies had not been recovered.
According to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, the cause of the explosion was never determined. However, Stewart’s research attributed the explosion to an exhaust fan in the mine that failed, causing explosive methane gas and dust to build up in the tunnels.
One year after the explosion, searchers returned to try again to retrieve the victims, but 19 bodies were never found. They remain entombed in the shattered mine. Every year, the United Mine Workers Union holds a ceremony at Farmington #9 Memorial off of Route 250, north of Mannington. This year’s event was held yesterday with top union officials on hand.
Reports of the disaster and the images of grieving family members shocked the nation and led the federal government to address coal mine safety. In 1969, Congress passed the Federal Coal Mine Healthy and Safety Act. President Richard Nixon said at the bill signing that the legislation represented “a crucially needed step forward in the protection of America’s coal miners.”
The law toughened safety standards, increased mine inspections, authorized mine inspectors to shut down mines if life-threatening hazards were found and added protections and benefits for black lung.
The law took effect in 1970 and made an immediate impact on mine safety. The number of coal mine fatalities has dropped from 260 in 1970 to nine in 2023. Granted, there are only half as many coal miners today as there were 50 years ago, but the number of fatalities has reduced 26 fold.
By some estimates, as much as 15 billion tons of coal have been mined in West Virginia over the years. That coal fueled the greatest economic expansion in history, and it continues to be an integral part of the energy portfolio of this country and the world.
However, as the anniversary of the Farmington #9 Mine disaster reminds us, that has come with a terrible human cost.