Ventilation Areas News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Owns the mine insists safety always comes first. but experts say the paper trail tells a different story. hundreds of citations for safety violations, some of them repeated and serious, which should have raised red flags. at the upper big branch mine, citations for safety violations spiked in the past couple of years, from 197 in 2008 to # 15 in 2009 and 124 already this year. experts say some of the violations are serious, even flagrant. it involved areas critical to preventing explosions, ventilation, excessive dust, and methane gas. the man that once over saw safety laws said the violations...

Years. from 197 in 2008 to 515 in 2009. and 124 already this year. experts say some of the violations are serious, even flagrant. and in both areas criminal -- critical to preventing explosions. this man who once oversaw mine safety laws says the violations should have sounded alarms. >> the high levels of serious violations in the ventilation areas and concerns about methane, all of those should be giving you this kind of, whoa, we better take a look at this. >> reporter: still, even in the wake of this tragedy, massey energy's website boasts of its commitment to safety. the company's ceo, do...

There. first we have heard there is explosion that can mean any number of things, it could mean there is water out there. air contaminated. rocks out of the way. >> if there is any explosion, the air is contaminated with different types of gases. there could be fire still existing and going on in the mine. ventilation areas have been blocked by caving. in a lot of things that could have happened. there are ways of contacting the people on their different types of communication. they have to see which one of those operations are up and running to see if they can locate them. >> shepard: i was g...