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Courrières mine disaster - Rescuer equipped with Guglielminetti-Drager breathing apparatus (front). Rescue attempts began quickly on the morning of the disaster, but were hampered by the lack of trained mine rescuers in France at that time, and by the scale of the disaster: some two-thirds of the miners in the mine at the time of the explosion perished, while many survivors suffered from the ...
Foreman John Dean was responsible for saving these men. He led the survivors to a ventilation partition used to protect them and risked his life in several trips. [1] A dozen mules were brought in to retrieve the bodies and wreckage from the mine because it lost power after the explosion.
The fires continued to burn for over a week, and on November 29, rescuers finally admitted defeat after air samples from drill holes showed air unable to sustain human life. The mine was sealed on November 30 with concrete to starve the fire of oxygen. [7] In September 1969, the mine was unsealed in an attempt to recover the miners' bodies.
Gadd, whose wife was delivered of a son two months later, can be regarded as the 43rd victim of the mining tragedy. He was posthumously awarded the Clarke Gold Medal from the Royal Humane Society in Melbourne. Silver medals were awarded to 30 rescuers, among them engineer Russell Mervyn Murray, later the mine's general manager. [9]
Instead, pumps had to be brought in from the Soviet Union and Poland to try to remove the water. [2] Ujjal Narayan Sinha, the former Chief Justice of the Patna High Court, was appointed to investigate the circumstances of the disaster. He submitted his report on 24 March 1977. Consequently, four IISCO officials were prosecuted for negligence.
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Loss of life and limb as narrow mine tunnels, fortified with twisted tree branches if at all, collapse and bury miners alive. The rape of female miners, who later carry their infant children on ...
The walking trail of steel figures is a memorial to the 106 miners who died in mining disasters at the colliery in 1937, 1938 and 1973. Each figure represents an individual dead miner whose name is stamped on the circular bronze tag on the figure's chest.