Here is something I did not know. The accident rate in mines has continued to decline, but this article says that more eastern miners are coming down with black lung disease these days, because there is less coal and it is more difficult to extract.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/opinion/trump-coal-decline.html QUOTE: "Black lung cases in Appalachia coal miners in those three clinics had skyrocketed. The disease was more severe. And coal miners were dying much younger than they had been two decades ago. . . . The most likely causes are the miners’ working longer hours and their exposure to deadlier silica dust from cutting into rock to extract coal from thinner, harder-to-reach seams. The days of mining for readily available coal are long gone. It’s more difficult, and seemingly more costly to miners’ health, to extract coal in Appalachia now."
