Fed agency says Ky. had 1 coal-mining death in 2018
Published 11:18 am Thursday, January 10, 2019
LEXINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration says coal-mining related deaths have reached a record low in Kentucky where a single miner died last year.
The Lexington Herald-Leader reports the agency said Tuesday that there were 12 deaths at coal mines nationwide in 2018. Federal records and investigators say 29-year-old Hubert Grubbs Jr. died in March when he was caught in an underground conveyor belt at a mine near Cumberland.
The agency says there were 27 fatalities nationwide at all mines in 2018, including those at facilities such as rock quarries. It says that is the second-lowest number of mining deaths ever. Forty-eight mining deaths were recorded nationwide in 2010 when 29 people died in a West Virginia mine explosion. In 2016, there was a low of eight coal-mining deaths.