TALLMANSVILLE (USA), Jan 4: Relatives of 13 coal miners trapped for nearly two days underground reacted in anger and sorrow on Wednesday after hearing that only one had survived, and not 12, as had erroneously been announced earlier.

Families keeping vigil at a church had broken into hymns when they heard that the 12 men had survived. Three hours later, their jubilation turned into grief when they were told the miners were dead.

“The initial report from the rescue teams from the command centre indicated multiple survivors, but that information proved to be a miscommunication,” International Coal Group (ICG) president and chief executive Ben Hatfield told reporters.

Hatfield identified the lone survivor as Randal McCloy, 27, who was taken to West Virginia University Hospital, where a doctor said he was in critical condition and dehydrated, with a collapsed lung.

“The 11 remaining miners in the barricade structure were determined by the medical technicians on the rescue team to have already deceased,” Hatfield said.

The community had been waiting anxiously for news on the miners since they were trapped on Monday by

an explosion that ripped through the Sago mine as they were resuming work after the Christmas and New Year holidays.

One body was recovered late on Tuesday, but shortly before midnight, bells pealed and cheers erupted at the nearby Sago Baptist Church, as West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin announced: “They told us they have 12 alive.”

Three hours later, people left the church in a state of shock and in tears after mining officials inside had confirmed the grim news that only one of the miners had survived.

Some people were angry and frustrated that ICG took three hours to issue the correct information.

“We mourned together, we communicated together, we cried together, ... but then we got our hopes built up, and you just don’t do that to people, you just don’t do it,” a sobbing Anna Casto, whose cousin was among the fatalities, told CNN.

The mistake was amplified on Wednesday in several newspapers around the country, which did not have time to change their headlines proclaiming that 12 miners had survived the ordeal.

Asked how such a serious mistake was made, Mr Hatfield said ICG had taken every precaution to ensure its information was correct but ‘bad information’ from the rescue team was inadvertently relayed to the outside.

“What happened is that through stray cell phone conversations, it appears that this miscommunication from the rescue team underground to the command centre was picked up by various people that simply overheard the conversations,” Mr Hatfield said.

“ICG never made any release about all 12 of the miners being alive and well. We simply couldn’t confirm that at that point. But that information spread like wildfire because it had come from the command centre, but it was bad information,” he added.—AFP