Further Revelations

Still on the matter of the mining tragedy (see previous post): apparently mining officials knew 20 minutes after news broke of the "miraculous survival" that only one miner had, in fact, survived---not twelve. Yet they allowed families to celebrate for three hours while they apparently "verified that all their information was correct". Huh? If you know 20 minutes later that a terrible mistake has been made, can't you at least tell people: "Wait! Wrong information! We don't have all the details but a terrible mistake has been made!" Twenty minutes of false hope and celebration would surely have been less heartbreaking and appallingly morbid in each one's rear-view mirror than three hours. Three hours of joyful expectation.

I'm sure that being in any sort of official capacity under these circumstances and stresses would be quite awful. But it seems like this was handled about as poorly as was possible.