'A freak accident': 2 men dead after landslide in eastern

The Clay County Sheriff’s Office is investigating after two men who died in a landslide were discovered early Friday morning, officials said.

Investigators believe the two men were digging for coal on a hillside along Stone Gap Road in Manchester, Kentucky, when the hill collapsed on top of them, Walter Marker, a sheriff’s deputy investigating the incident said.

The incident was reported around 1 a.m. Friday by the brother of one of the men who was found in the rubble, Marker said.

The man told investigators he was driving around the area searching for his brother, who he had not seen since Tuesday. He stopped at the site of the landslide after coming across his brother’s vehicle along Stone Gap Road, eventually noticing the rubble accumulated at the bottom of an embankment off the side of the road, Marker said.

Investigators found multiple buckets of coal, a pick axe and a shovel in the vehicle and in the victims’ vicinity, indicating that they were likely digging for coal, Marker said.

“It just looked like it was kind of a freak accident,” Marker said. “It looks like they were picking away, and it just collapsed on top of them.”

Marker said it’s likely the landslide could have occurred well before the men were discovered considering one of them was reportedly last seen days ago.

The men’s names have not been released as authorities work to notify next of kin, officials said. The investigation is ongoing.

Contact reporter Killian Baarlaer at kbaarlaer@gannett.com or @bkillian72 on X.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: 2 men dead in Clay County, Kentucky landslide

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