Jesus!!

Yesterday we alluded to information about the terrible safety record of the mine in West Virginia and how much of the responsibility was due to lax enforcement and the GOP attitude toward worker safety.

Well, now we know just how callous the company was.

In a stunning and heartbreaking reversal, mining officials told family members early Wednesday that 11 of the 12 trapped coal miners initially thought to have survived a mine explosion had died.

The devastating news came more than three hours after Gov. Joe Manchin said he had been told 12 of the miners survived the disaster. Rescue crews found the first victim earlier Tuesday evening.

"About the confusion, I can't tell you of anything more heart-wrenching than I've ever gone through in my life. Nothing," Manchin said...

Hatfield (the Company CEO) said he knew within 20 minutes that an error had been made and that not all 12 were alive, but said he did not inform jubilant family members.

"We couldn't correct the information without knowing more about it," he told reporters. "Let's put this in perspective -- who do we tell not to celebrate? All I knew is, there weren't 12 people that were alive. It was somewhere between 12 and zero."

It took three hours for the mine owners to correct information that they knew to be wrong.

It's a microcosm of the last five years in heartbreaking detail scrunched into 24 hours.