In China, the world's top producer of coal, an average of 16 workers are killed in coal mining accidents every day. By contrast, the U.S. coal mining industry is safe. And it probably seemed safe enough, until January's tragedy in West Virginia. In the aftermath of that disaster, UMR's Dr. Larry Grayson was named chair of a new national committee charged with making mine safety recommendations to the industry.

"I truly believe that as an institution, we were lulled into thinking that we were improving," Grayson said in an Associated Press story published Friday. "Then all of a sudden, this sequence of events in January said, 'Wait a minute, you've got a problem.'"

According to the Associated Press article, the wake-up call could have come as early as September of 2001, when 13 men died in a mining explosion in Alabama. The accident, however, was overshadowed by the 9/11 terrorist attacks that had happened earlier in the month.

Today, even as coal mining practices in the United States are about to undergo serious safety revisions, we are reminded by the unfolding disaster in Mexico that things can and do go terribly wrong in the world's mines.