Like many West Virginia coal towns that have shifted from underground mining to far more destructive mountaintop-removal mining, this hamlet, known as Twilight, is now in the business of burying itself alive.
Massey Energy opened a surface strip mine near Twilight that now produces 5 million tons of coal annually, all of it dug up and hauled off by about 350 non-union workers Many families that weren't lucky enough to land jobs on the strip have left. The area's population has fallen from more than 500 in 1990 to less than 250 today. "With mountaintop removal, they can get the coal easier and quicker with less people,"