Editorial: Ghastly Mix-Up

THE death of 13 miners in West Virginia was tragic enough but when the mine’s owners reported that 12 of the missing men had been found alive and only one man was dead, there was hysterical joy among anxious waiting relatives. Unfortunately three hours later, the bitter truth became known. Only one man had survived. The rest had perished.

The Arab News takes a responsible look at the double tragedy of the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia. First, the deaths may have been preventable; an investigation into the mine’s safety standards will determine that.

The second disaster, of course, was the erroneous reporting that the trapped miners had been recovered, alive. That, sadly, was not the case, with only one surviving.

Here, the paper shows a level of responsibility that is lacking in much American reporting:

Nevertheless, ghastly though this mix-up was, …the depth of feeling over what cannot have been anything other than an innocent mistake should give pause for thought. The tragic loss of these men’s lives has triggered what has become the automatic reaction among Americans that someone else has to be to blame. That demand to find a culprit has been magnified by the erroneous raising and then dashing of the hopes of the affected families.

Mining is a dangerous business anywhere, not just in countries like China where clearly safety standards have often been ignored. It may yet emerge that Sago Mine accident was just that, an accident that could not have been avoided in what is always a risky environment, however many precautions are taken. At this moment of such profound grief it may seem a hard thing to say, but the reality is that miners know the dangers of their work. In one way therefore this bitter storm of recrimination actually belittles their courage.