[imgbelt img=mine.jpg]The Washington Post reports that despite increased federal inspections and crackdown on safety violations, nine men have died in U. S. mines since the Upper Big Branch disaster. Twenty-nine men were killed in the Upper Branch mine in West Virginia on April 5. Since then, according to the Post, five men have been killed by heavy machinery and four by falling rock at 8 separate mines in coal country from northern West Virginia to southern Illinois.