Mine Explosion, West Virginia

From LA Times:

Twenty-five miners were killed Monday after a coal mine explosion deep in the rugged hills of West Virginia, marking the worst U.S. mine disaster since 1984 and raising questions about safety precautions at one of the nation's largest coal producers.

The search for survivors at the Upper Big Branch mine was called off early Tuesday morning, although four miners remained unaccounted for, according to Jeff Gillenwater, spokesman for Massey Energy Co., the mine owner.

Distraught families and others in the tight-knit Appalachian mining community wept and hugged nearby as rescue teams penetrated the deep shafts and dark tunnels, and as the death toll steadily rose through the long night.

The explosion about 3 p.m. Monday had disabled communication lines, including wireless systems, inside the vast underground complex, officials said.

Though this is a US-centric disaster, it is symbolic of the dangerous work required to produce the energy in our current system. The GCP event was set for 2 pm to 8 pm, local time (18:00-24:00 UTC). The result is Chisquare 21573 on 21600 df, for Z = -0.122 and p = 0.547.

Mining Explosion,
West Virginia

It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of similar analyses.


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