All of us at the Natural Resources Defense Council join our nation in mourning the miners tragically killed this week in the Upper Big Branch-South mine disaster in West Virginia.

Day-in and day-out they did the anonymous, high risk, difficult and dirty work needed to supply the coal that keeps our homes, schools, and hospitals warm, well lighted and working.  They did that work for us until the very last moments of their lives.

Over the past few years those of us working on Appalachian issues have met many underground miners. We’ve met the wives of miners, the children of miners, the brothers and sisters of miners, the parents of miners, and the friends of miners. They are beautiful Americans rightfully proud of the hard work they do to support their families and power our nation.

Their loss is our loss.

There is much to say about the thousands of health and safety violations that the coal company Massey perpetrated at the Upper Big Branch-South mine, and there is much to say as well about this company’s almost singular destruction of so much of Appalachia.

But today and for many days to come our focus is elsewhere: Today we stop to pray and acknowledge those who died in the Upper Big Branch-South mine. We pray for the purity of their souls, and that their families will somehow be comforted in their grief. We pray for their families’ strength and well-being in the days, months and years to come.

May God intervene in their behalf, now and forever.