This is so awful.

The miners' families were pretty well resigned to the worst, when the false reports of their being found alive came out. It seems that a mine foreman overheard reports of vital signs being checked and understood this to mean that the miners were alive. He started calling families and it went from there. They were allowed to celebrate for three hours before this was corrected. The mining company bosses knew within 20 minutes of those false reports but they said nothing: "A coal company spokesman explained, 'Let's put this in perspective. Who do I tell not to celebrate? I didn't know if there were 12 or 1 [who were alive].'" What he should have done was to announce that the reports were premature, that the rescue was still in progress and they still didn't know how many were living. Much better to think your family member is dead and then find that he is alive, than the reverse. I just don't understand the three-hour wait.

And there ought to be some sincere questioning of procedures among newspaper staffs. Our own local paper had a huge headline screaming "MIRACLES HAPPEN". Well, maybe so, but not in this case. Very sad.