Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster

Date: April 5, 2010 • Location: Belington, United States

An explosion at a coal mine in West Virginia killed 29 miners in the United States' worst mining disaster in 40 years.

Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a "pit", and above-ground mining structures are referred to as a "pit head". In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine.