An employee died working in a Washington coal mine site just days before the new year, according to the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration.
Caleb Brown, 28, was killed Dec. 29, 2018, while aboard a barge that sank in a recovery pond at TransAlta Corp.'s Centralia mine in Lewis County, The (Longview, Wash.) Daily News reported. Other employees found the 72-foot vessel submerged below 20 feet of water. The power to the barge had been shut off. Thurston County Dive Team members found Brown in the vessel's cabin.
Twelve people were killed in events related to coal mining in 2018, including a man who died in an industrial accident in a Pennsylvania coal mining operation Dec. 20, 2018.