An explosion at a coal mine in West Virginia killed 29 miners in the United States' worst mining disaster in 40 years.

Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a "pit", and above-ground mining structures are referred to as a "pit head". In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine.

West Virginia is a mountainous state in the Southern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered by Pennsylvania and Maryland to the northeast, Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. West Virginia is the 10th-smallest state by area and ranks as the 12th-least populous state, with a population of 1,769,979 residents. The capital and most populous city is Charleston with a population of 49,055.

The Upper Big Branch Mine disaster occurred on April 5, 2010, roughly 1,000 feet (300 m) underground in Raleigh County, West Virginia at Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch coal mine located in Montcoal. Of the 31 people at the site, 29 were killed. The coal dust explosion occurred at 3:27 pm. The incident was the worst in the United States since 1970, when 38 miners were killed at Finley Coal Company's No. 15 and 16 mines in Hyden, Kentucky. A state funded independent investigation later found Massey Energy directly responsible for the blast.