2 Missing After W.Va. Mine Fire

Rescue teams searched early Friday for two miners who were unable to escape after a fire broke out in an underground coal mine. Nineteen miners were able to flee the blaze, state officials said.

The fire started Thursday evening on a conveyor belt at the Alma No. 1 Mine operated by Massey Energy subsidiary Aracoma Coal, about 60 miles southwest of Charleston, officials said.

Twelve miners had gone into the mine to start their shift when a carbon monoxide monitor sounded an alarm around 5:36 p.m., said Doug Conaway, director of the state Office of Miners' Health Safety and Training. The monitor was located about 10,000 feet inside the mine and about 900 feet underground, he said.

The miners encountered smoke, put on breathing gear and rushed out of the mine, he said, but two were separated from the group. Nine others in another part of the mine also escaped.

The fire came less than three weeks after an explosion at the International Coal Group's Sago Mine in Upshur County killed 12 miners. The disaster's sole survivor, Randal McCloy Jr., 26, remained hospitalized in a light coma Friday.

There are six miles of tunnels in the section where the fire occurred, and the rescue teams must travel two miles from the mine entrance to reach that area, according to a map of the mine.

"We're very hopeful," Gov. Joe Manchin said. "It's a different scenario. Sago is very fresh in everybody's mind but this is a different scenario."

Rescue crews were able to go around the fire and then come back out around the fire again, so that gives them hope that the two miners could use that as an escape route as well, reports Jack Kane of CBS affiliate WOWK-TV.

Haskell Sheppard, 29, works the overnight shift as a repairman on the main conveyor belt that brings the coal out. He said the line where the fire broke out had problems in the past, but nothing as serious as this time.

"Things are bound to tear up every once in a while," he said.

According to the Mine Safety and Health Administration's Web site, the Alma mine received 95 citations from MSHA inspectors during 2005. The most recent were issued on Dec. 20, when the mine was cited with seven violations ranging from controlling coal dust and other combustible materials to its ventilation plan.

The mine was assessed $28,268 in penalties last year and it has paid nearly $13,000.

It has not had a fatal accident since 1995. The mine had a better-than-average accident rate between 2001 and 2004, but it increased last year when 16 workers and one contractor were injured.