Coal mining, and mine disasters.

As one has sat here listening to the frenzy going on in West Virgina coal country after the current explosion, one has had a thought. It is said that since 1995 Massey Coal, the company that owns the mine in question, has had 3000violations. This causes one to wonder..what other coal mining companies might be out there and how many THEY have had in the same time frame. The last 2 violations of which I can currently recall one of..failure to have updated evac route maps in the mine. We know the chinese mines are about as a safe as bathing in a tub full of gasoline with lit candles on the lip of tub. So that would probably be comparing apples and bananas. I'm talking US companies. Now I confess ignorance in the matter because hey..I live in Texas, what do I know from coal mining. I don't even know how many mines Massey might own. But if they only own 1-3mines like that and even spread out over 15yrs, 3000 safety violations seems like 3000 too much.
That being said the last update I heard was that in a desperate attempt to get down there, they were planning on flooding the mine with nitrogen, because they discovered earlier that the methane levels were still to great. I hope the 4 they can't account for survived, and I hope they get them out, it would be nice to salvage some life out of this disaster.