Six funerals of victims were planned for today.

The lone survivor found among those corpses, 26-yearold Randal McCloy Jr, remains critically ill in a medicallyinduced coma at a Pittsburgh hospital. Doctors believe he has brain damage from severe oxygen deprivation. His wife, Anna, said she planned to play one of his favourite bands, Metallica. She got his regular brand of deodorant and soap, hoping the familiar smells will help him come to.

"When we lose one, the whole nation's miners mourn, " said Bob Friend, acting deputy assistant secretary of labour for the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

An eight-person team has been appointed by the MSHA to investigate Monday's blast.

It killed one miner immediately and 11 more who were found nearly 42 hours later huddled together behind a plastic curtain erected to keep out deadly carbon monoxide.

McCloy's recollections could be crucial to investigators, who have yet to go back into the mine. On Friday, officials started to drill three ventilation holes into the central West Virginia mine to purge it of poisonous gases, allowing investigators safely back inside to determine what sparked the blast and how the miners spent their final hours.

"There are so many things we don't know about what went wrong, " said International Coal Group chief executive Ben Hatfield.

"We don't want to put any more people at risk until we know answers."

The probe will also look at the miscommunication from rescuers that led relatives to believe their loved ones had miraculously survived.