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Only one US miner reported alive
Only one of the 12 trapped miners found in a US coal mine on Wednesday has survived, reports from the US say.

CNN said only one man - critically ill and rushed to hospital - had been found alive by rescuers, just hours after news all had been found safe.

CNN named the survivor as 26-year-old Randal McCloy.

Relatives had celebrated in churches after reports that the rescue attempts had found all 12 men alive in an air pocket in the mine.

"Everybody is stunned," said Sam Lands, the brother-in-law of Martin Bennet, who had been in the mine.

"I thought I was going to pass out. I couldn't believe it. We've been lied to all along. We need answers."

West Virginia Governer Joe Manchin had earlier praised news of the men's rescue from the Sago mine a "miracle".

Earlier, rescuers had found the body of a 13th miner left in a mine cart some 3000 metres inside the mine.

The men had been trapped in the mine after an explosion on Monday. The cause of the blast is not yet known.

Families devastated as 'rescued' miners are found dead

By Mark Coultan Herald Correspondent in New York and agencies
January 5, 2006
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IN A devastating blow to relatives of miners missing after an underground explosion in West Virginia, officials at the disaster site retracted an announcement that there were 12 survivors, saying later that only one miner had survived.

Ben Hatfield, the chief executive of International Coal Group, the mine's owners, said a miscommunication from inside the mine to the rescue command centre was overheard and spread to the relatives gathered in Sago Baptist Church, in the small town of Tallmansville.

He said the mistake occurred when rescuers found 12 miners barricaded in a part of the Sago Mine and said they were checking the miners' vital signs.

In the command centre three kilometres away, this became they had found 12 survivors. In fact, only one miner, Randal McCloy, was alive. He was taken to hospital on a ventilator in a critical condition.

What turned out to be false euphoria quickly spread. The church bells of Tallmansville started ringing. Someone called out: "They're alive, they're alive!" The Governor of West Virginia, Joe Manchin, yelled to the media the mantra he had adopted since the beginning: "Believe in miracles."

Everyone believed that, against the odds, 12 coalminers, trapped for 40 hours 80 metres underground and three kilometres from the mine entrance, had been found alive.

"Miracles happen in West Virginia, and today we got one," said Charlotte Weaver, wife of Jack Weaver, one of the trapped miners.

"I got scared a lot of times, but I couldn't give up. We have an 11-year-old son, and I couldn't go home and tell him Daddy wasn't coming home."

The families reacted angrily when the information was corrected three hours later, yelling "hypocrites" and "liars" to the mine company representatives. They left the church in tears.

The families of the missing miners had been waiting for news in the church for most of the time since the explosion.

About three hours before the false report that 12 of the miners had survived, one miner's body had been found by rescue crews. It appeared the man had been working on a belt line, which brings coal out of the mine, Mr Hatfield said.

But that news had been accompanied by a ray of hope. About 200 metres from his body rescuers had found the vehicle that had carried the crew underground. It was undamaged, but there was no sign of the other 12 miners. This raised hopes that the miners had escaped the blast and might have found a safe haven from a buildup of carbon monoxide.

For the 13 families, the news that one body had been found led to hours of agonising waiting before the body was identified.

Hopes started to fade earlier in the day, when a bore drilled from the surface found carbon monoxide at three times fatal levels in the mine. The miners only carried oxygen for an hour.

The cause of the explosion is not known. The mine was reopening after a holiday break, and had been inspected shortly before the first crew arrived for work on Monday morning.