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Senghenydd Mine Disaster Anniversary Memorial, 14 October 2013
One hundred years ago tomorrow, at 8:00AM on the morning of 14 October 1913, a terrible series of explosions struck the Universal Coal Pit in the village of Senghenydd.
In that explosion, Senghenydd lost nearly its entire male population, almost 440 men and boys, to the largest mining disaster in the history of the UK, one of the most terrible in the world.
The disaster was believed to have been caused by "firedamp": a spark ignites methane gas and explodes, that explosion sucks coal dust on the floor into the air and ignites that into a larger explosion. In Senghenydd, each blast caused more coal dust to rise in a series of self-igniting explosions, which spread through the underground works of the mine and were followed by "afterdamp," deadly poisonous gases which replaced the missing air and oxygen.
Following the disaster, investigations of the mine found many safety faults by the owners and managers, who were fined only 24 for the lives of hundreds of fathers, sons, brothers, uncles and nephews.
Tomorrow, thousands of people will line the streets of Senghenydd to mark the 100th anniversary of the disaster.
A week of events which started on October 12th will include tomorrow's unveiling of a bronze statue of a rescue worker aiding a miner, created by sculptor Les Johnson, and the opening of a walled garden.
The garden will include a slate tile for each of the Senghenydd victims which will give their name, age and address and a "path of memory" made of tiles for each mining disaster in Wales that resulted in the deaths of five or more people with the name of the colliery, date of disaster and the number of victims.
You can find out more about the memorial and the events planned here:
http://your.caerphilly.gov.uk/abervalleyheritage/events
Book of the Day, 14 October -
Surfing Through Minefields by Bel Roberts - A Review
From our interview with Bel Roberts :- " Surfing Through Minefields belongs to the hybrid genre reality fiction. I have set the story in a fictional contemporary comprehensive school in Monmouth and have researched the facts surrounding the Senghenydd Pit disaster of 1913 in such a way that the history of the event is seen from the prospective of a modern teenager and by the residents of an old peoples home who have actual mementos of the tragic event. The heroine, Lauren, is an English teenager sent to stay with her grandmother in Wales while her parents sort out their various problems." ... read more here
Thank you so very much for posting those photos - it's wonderful to get to see what the garden looks like and those tiles just lay me out, they're just incredible.
Thanks for posting those things, guys. I had heard of the Senghenydd disaster but I didn't know anything about it until I started reading to write my post. Now I can't stop thinking about those poor men and boys in the mine, how awful that was, whether they heard the other explosions or saw the coal dust rise up and knew what was going to happen and I can't imagine being the survivors and the family members. What an unimaginable tragedy.
I grew up in the village, here is my report on Demotix - Senghenydd Remembers
I'm from Cilfynydd. The village where the 1894 pit disaster took place.
Albion was the scene of the second worst disaster in the South Wales Coalfield, after the later disaster at the Universal Colliery at Senghenydd in 1913.
At 4 o'clock on Saturday 23 June 1894, a massive explosion on the Groves level caused by the ignition of coal dust following an explosion of firedamp, killed 290 men and boys. Of the 125 horses underground, only 2 survived. Despite 16 men emerging from the disaster with their lives, only five of these survived.
The bodies brought to the surface were initially assessed and stored in the colliery's stable hayloft, that acted as a temporary morgue. Many were so badly mutilated that identification was virtually impossible, and there were several instances of corpses being carried to the wrong houses. Another source of confusion was that nobody knew the number of men below ground when the explosion occurred.
Almost everyone in the community lost someone in the disaster. One family in Howell Street lost 11 members: the father, his four sons, and six lodgers.