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Explosive levels of methane gas forced the evacuation of the mine involved in the deadliest American coal industry disaster in a decade, a government spokeswoman said Wednesday. Forty-eight people were inside Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mine when the evacuation occurred Monday, said Amy Louviere, a federal Mine Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman. The agency, the state and the United States Justice Department are investigating the explosion that killed 29 miners at the mine on April 5. No one was injured in Monday's incident, said Jeff Gillenwater, a Massey spokesman. The methane scare occurred as crews were pumping water from a flooded section of the mine, Ms. Louviere said. Crews detected explosive levels of methane, hung curtains to help direct air through the area, then left. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If a sense of urgency is needed beyond the deaths of 29 coal miners last April in West Virginia, Congressional lawmakers better heed the latest news from the Upper Big Branch mine where the explosion occurred. A company electrician has admitted that he was ordered to bypass a methane detector alarm when it kept interrupting the flow of coal. The highly risky silencing, first reported by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, occurred two months before the tragedy and four miles away. But a grand jury is reportedly looking into a possible pattern of detector-tampering, an outlawed practice that the company, Massey Energy, firmly denies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SOPHIA, W.Va. -- The decor and the conversation in Larry Jones's cluttered place on Main Street -- a former shop where retired miners now gather to sip coffee -- convey the split personality of West Virginia politics. A few things jump out from the fraying calendars and coal mine pictures Mr. Jones has collected: the life-size cardboard cutout of George W. Bush, wearing a Friends of Coal button; the photograph of Mr. Jones and his wife with Bill Clinton; and a McCain-Palin button pinned to the wall. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

AUDIO Miners and mining families talk about their lives and the effects of fatal accidents in the industry, such as the explosion this week at a West Virginia mine. nytimes.com/national [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

HORSE CREEK, W.Va. -- As Janice Quarles waited for the phone to ring with news that her husband's body had been pulled from the Upper Big Branch mine, she vowed -- much as so many West Virginia mothers have before her -- that her son, Trevor, 11, would never follow his father into the mines. ''There just ain't no way,'' she said. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on the federal charges filed on a former foreman at the Sago Mine, Robert L. Dennison that he falsified inspection reports at the mine in 2004 in Morgantown, West Virginia.

The article reports on the law enacted by the local government of West Virginia that requires miners be equipped with wireless communication and location system and other safety devices.

The article reports on the search effort by smoke hampers rescuers to retrieve miners who became victims of a fire that broke out inside a mine in Melville, West Virginia.

The article reports on the mourning services for miners, which were killed at the Sago Mine in West Virginia, focusing on the life of the miners. The miners were praised as men who had work ethic that would not quit. Governor Joe Manchin, however, pledged to determine the cause of the tragedy.

The article comments on the possible enforcement that could have prevented the coal mining tragedy in West Virginia. Inspectors remark that if regulations were followed, the disaster would have been forestalled. The author suggests the need to consider the budget cutbacks and staff attrition for the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

The article reports on the treatment undertaken by lone survivor Randal McCloy Jr. from the mining tragedy in West Virginia.

Reports on the move by lawyers for the Justice Department and the coal industry to urge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to overturn the ruling by Judge Charles H. Haden II barring permits that allow coal companies to bury streams under rock and dirt removed from mountaintop mines in West Virginia.

Focuses on the impact of the ruling of Judge Charles H. Haden II of the Federal District Court in Charleston, West Virginia to limit mountaintop removal of the mining industry.