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A Massey Energy electrician died Thursday after being run over by coal-hauling equipment at the Pocahontas mine in Greenbrier County. Also Thursday, four Massey supervisors were charged with crimes stemming from a fatal mine fire in 2006. They are accused of failing to conduct safety drills at Massey's Aracoma Alma No. 1 mine in Logan County, where two men died trying to escape a conveyer belt fire. A Massey spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Massey Energy subsidiary has agreed to pay $4.2 million in civil and criminal penalties and plead guilty to federal charges stemming from a fire that killed two miners at a southern West Virginia coal mine in January 2006, a United States attorney said. The prosecutor, Charles Miller, said his investigation was continuing and did not rule out the possibility that individuals might be charged with violating federal mine safety laws. State and federal investigators say an overheated conveyer belt caused the fire at the Alma No. 1 mine operated by the Aracoma Coal Company. Don Bragg, 33, and Ellery Elvis Hatfield, 47, died after they were separated from the rest of their mining crew. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The widows of two men killed in a 2006 coal mine fire settled a wrongful death lawsuit against Massey Energy Company, lawyers for both sides announced. Details of the settlement, which came four days into a civil trial, were not released. Delorice Bragg and Freda Hatfield, the widows of the miners Don I. Bragg, 33, and Ellery E. Hatfield, 47, sued the company, which is based in Richmond, Va.; its chief executive, Don Blankenship; and two subsidiaries. Mr. Bragg and Mr. Hatfield died after getting lost in thick smoke from a conveyer belt fire at the Aracoma Alma No. 1 Mine in Logan County in January 2006. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents information about a fire in a mine in Siberia, Russia on Saturday.

The article reports on the search effort by smoke hampers rescuers to retrieve miners who became victims of a fire that broke out inside a mine in Melville, West Virginia.

Focuses on long-burning fires in coal deposits worldwide, the emission from which may be contributing to global warming and pumping toxic pollution into the atmosphere. Efforts of scientists to chart and monitor these fires; Causes of coal deposit fires, including grassland and forest fires, and spontaneous combustion of coal; Possibility that these fires have increased in number because of increased mining; Details of fires in Centralia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.