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Unmarked graves, an ‘ugly history’: W.Va. weighs mine safety

Coal miners leave the chamber of the West Virginia House of Delegates after speaking against a bill to strip regulatory authority from the state office of miners' health, safety and training at the state Capitol on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022 in Charleston W.Va. (Kenny Kemp/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP) Ed Evans, Democratic West Virginia delegate and retired public school teacher, walks in the overgrown unmarked cemetery where more than 80 coal miners killed in the 1912 Jed Coal and Coke Company disaster are buried on June 7, 2022, in Havaco, W.Va. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham) West Virginia coal miner Jesse Stolzenfels speaks at a public hearing against a bill that would have stripped regulatory authority from the state office of miners' health, safety and training in the House of Delegates chamber in state Capitol on Monday, February 28, 2022 in Charleston W.Va. (Kenny Kemp/Charleston Gazette-Mail via AP) Ed Evans, Democratic West Virginia delegate and retired public school teacher, speaks about the more than 80 coal miners killed in the 1912 Jed Coal and Coke Company explosion during a visit to the unmarked gravesite where disaster victims are buried in Havaco, W.Va, on June 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham) Ruins of an abandoned mine in Havaco, W.Va., nearby where more than 80 West Virginia coal miners who died in a mining disaster in 1912 are buried, is seen on June 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham) Mike Hairston, a fourth-generation coal miner, speaks in his driveway about the unmarked gravesite down the road from his home where more than 80 West Virginia coal miners who died in a 1912 mining disaster are buried in unmarked graves in Havaco, W.Va., on June 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham) The overgrown gravesite in Havaco, W.Va., where more than 80 West Virginia coal miners are buried in unmarked graves, is seen on June 7, 2022. The miners – most of them European immigrants – were killed in an explosion at the now-shuttered Jed Coal and Coke Company mine in 1912. Ferns, mayapple plants and fallen trees have almost completely erased any sign of the burial site. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)
Unmarked graves, an ‘ugly history’: W.Va. weighs mine safety