Uncovering causes of West Virginia mine explosion

The World

We look behind Monday’s coal mine explosion that killed 25 and left 4 miners trapped in Montcoal, W. Va., into the Massey corporation, which owns the mine.

Ellen Smith is the editor of Mine Safety and Health News. She has been poring over the mine maps since Monday’s explosion and says she can see no possible reason to allow mining to take place at a site so fraught with dangerous abnormalities. We are also joined by New York Times national correspondent, Ian Urbina, who has reported extensively on Massey CEO, Don Blankenship, a man who wields considerable power in West Virginia.

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