Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Update on the situation of the miners
This is really sad. The miners were said to have been found except for the first one reported to be dead, so the whole town broke into celebrations. I remember thinklng, I'm glad the twelve were found alive, but I feel bad for the one dead one. I would have been grateful, but I think I would have done what I could to comfort the family of that last one.
I had kind of a bad feeling about it. I woke in the middle of the night to hear that the miners had been found dead, and the bodies rushed to the hospital, the one miner found, actually was found alive, but as of the last news I heard, he was barely hanging onto his life.
The little town went from wild exuberant celebration to fury in such a short time. I do not blame them for their anger under the circumstances, but it points up a thing that bothers me greatly.
The reason they went through this was they believed a rumor. Someone not authorized to report the situation heard just that the miners were found, this person reported them as alive.
I think the fact this mine has a rather poor safety record did not help, people were already very emotional.
This points up a couple of things, one for people to believe rumors is dangerous, rumor is only gossip on steroids, when people discuss rumor, they need to realize this, and be very clear of the difference between rumor and hard, provable fact.
The other thing is that there was a long time before the deaths of these poor men were reported. Could they have been alive and died later? Or was there 'news management'? If there were men still alive, then their conditions should have been reported, as in 'very serious' 'critical' or any of the standard ways you report that. If they were dead, I can see makeing sure there was an adequate police presence , and takeing care how the statement was worded, but three hours is too long for 'news management'. Past a certain point, it looks bad for the company. This mine has a history of fairly serious violations of safety rules. There are numerous minor violations, but more serious ones to do with air quality in the mine, escape routes being badly maintained, that sort of thing is not good.
Mineing is an unsafe occupation to start with, but it is not war, you do not go into mineing with an immediate expectation of death. A miner knows he's takeing chances, but there are expectatiions that the companies which own mines will obey the safety regulations, and will deal honestly with their workers.
I had kind of a bad feeling about it. I woke in the middle of the night to hear that the miners had been found dead, and the bodies rushed to the hospital, the one miner found, actually was found alive, but as of the last news I heard, he was barely hanging onto his life.
The little town went from wild exuberant celebration to fury in such a short time. I do not blame them for their anger under the circumstances, but it points up a thing that bothers me greatly.
The reason they went through this was they believed a rumor. Someone not authorized to report the situation heard just that the miners were found, this person reported them as alive.
I think the fact this mine has a rather poor safety record did not help, people were already very emotional.
This points up a couple of things, one for people to believe rumors is dangerous, rumor is only gossip on steroids, when people discuss rumor, they need to realize this, and be very clear of the difference between rumor and hard, provable fact.
The other thing is that there was a long time before the deaths of these poor men were reported. Could they have been alive and died later? Or was there 'news management'? If there were men still alive, then their conditions should have been reported, as in 'very serious' 'critical' or any of the standard ways you report that. If they were dead, I can see makeing sure there was an adequate police presence , and takeing care how the statement was worded, but three hours is too long for 'news management'. Past a certain point, it looks bad for the company. This mine has a history of fairly serious violations of safety rules. There are numerous minor violations, but more serious ones to do with air quality in the mine, escape routes being badly maintained, that sort of thing is not good.
Mineing is an unsafe occupation to start with, but it is not war, you do not go into mineing with an immediate expectation of death. A miner knows he's takeing chances, but there are expectatiions that the companies which own mines will obey the safety regulations, and will deal honestly with their workers.
# posted by Katja R. @ 7:50 AM 
