 Front Page of The Wheeling Intelligencer April 29, 1914 | |
| Date | April 28, 1914 |
|---|---|
| Location | Eccles, West Virginia |
| Cause | Coal Mine explosion |
| Casualties | |
| At least 180 men and boys | |
The Eccles mine disaster was an explosion of coal-seam methane that took place on April 28, 1914, in Eccles, West Virginia. The explosion took the lives of at least 180 men and boys.
The Eccles No. 5 mine was opened in 1905; served by the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Virginian Railway, it mined West Virginia smokeless coal. The mine was owned by the New River Colliers Company, a Guggenheim family interest at the time. [1] As with other West Virginia mines, the shafts pierced not only beds of coal but also pockets of natural gas. Few coal faces at the time were lighted by electricity, and the miners lighted their work with helmets bearing carbide lamps that burned calcium carbide to produce flammable acetylene. [2]
About 2:30 p.m. on April 28, 1914, a series of massive explosions ripped through the mine. A later investigation indicated that the flame of a carbide lamp had touched off a pocket of coal gas, which in turn ignited other pockets. It was the second-worst mining disaster in West Virginia history (exceeded as of 2022 only by the Monongah Mining Disaster).
At least 180 men lay dead, this being the death roll published as of 2011 by the National Coal Heritage Trail. [2] A cemetery monument lists 183 victims, and the records of the county coroner list 186. [3] One of the men who died was an insurance agent from Charleston, West Virginia, who had gone into the mine just before the explosion to solicit business from the men. [1]
The workmen's compensation law of West Virginia had taken effect in October 1913, thus no appeal to charity was made on behalf of the families. [1] Workers' compensation paid little ($20 a month for widows and supplement of $5 for each child) to victims. The disaster assisted unionization efforts in the West Virginia coal fields. A similar disaster eighteen years later in Illinois, the 1932 Moweaqua Coal Mine disaster, helped spur efforts to end the legal use of flammable carbide-acetylene lamps in U.S. coal mines.
The Eccles No. 5 mine resumed operations after the disaster, and continued in operation until 1928; the coal seam utilized by the mine continued to be extracted for many decades afterwards from other shafts. The Eccles Disaster Memorial commemorates victims of the explosions. [4]
The mine disaster brought attention to an overall safety problem in the West Virginia mining industry and therefore aided the unions' attempts to improve the workers' conditions. The Eccles mine explosion happened at the very end of the Second Industrial Revolution.
In this time era, coal was needed in large quantities; U.S. coal production had increased from 50 million ton of coal in 1850 to 250 million tons of coal in 1903. The increasing demand for coal led to worsening work conditions. When digging for coal in deep mines, chambers of gas lay just underneath, which could be highly explosive when coming in contact with carbide headlamps. The labor union helped to ban carbide headlamps in West Virginia; they had been suspected to be the cause of the Eccles explosion and, later, a second mine explosion 18 years later in Illinois.
The Davy lamp is a safety lamp used in flammable atmospheres, invented in 1815 by Sir Humphry Davy. It consists of a wick lamp with the flame enclosed inside a mesh screen. It was created for use in coal mines, to reduce the danger of explosions due to the presence of methane and other flammable gases, called firedamp or minedamp.
Firedamp is any flammable gas found in coal mines, typically coalbed methane. It is particularly found in areas where the coal is bituminous. The gas accumulates in pockets in the coal and adjacent strata and when they are penetrated the release can trigger explosions. Historically, if such a pocket was highly pressurized, it was termed a "bag of foulness".
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
A Carbide lamp or acetylene gas lamp is a simple lamp that produces and burns acetylene (C2H2), which is created by the reaction of calcium carbide (CaC2) with water (H2O).
The Monongah mining disaster of Monongah, West Virginia occurred on December 6, 1907, and has been described as "the worst mining disaster in American history." 362 miners were killed. The explosion occurred in Fairmont Coal Company’s No. 6 and No. 8 mines, and was one of the contributing events leading to the creation of the United States Bureau of Mines.
The Felling Colliery in Britain, suffered four disasters in the 19th century, in 1812, 1813, 1821 and 1847. By far the worst of the four was the 1812 disaster which claimed 92 lives on 25 May 1812. The loss of life in the 1812 disaster was one of the motivators for the development of miners' safety lamps such as the Geordie lamp and the Davy lamp.
Clifton Hall Colliery was one of two coal mines in Clifton on the Manchester Coalfield, historically in Lancashire which was incorporated into the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England in 1974. Clifton Hall was notorious for an explosion in 1885 which killed around 178 men and boys.
The Moweaqua Coal Mine disaster happened on December 24, 1932, in Moweaqua, Illinois. The disaster was caused by a methane gas explosion killing 54 miners. The explosion occurred shortly after the day shift started, sometime between 7:30 and 8:00 Christmas Eve morning.
Kiveton Park Colliery was a coal mine in the village of Kiveton Park, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England.
Kembla Heights is a village west of Wollongong, New South Wales in the Parish of Kembla County of Camden. It is situated along Harry Graham Drive and upper Cordeaux Road and is part of a tourist route that runs along the Illawarra escarpment for a distance between Mount Kembla and Mount Keira. The Dendrobium Colliery is located in Kembla Heights.
A mining lamp is a lamp, developed for the rigid necessities of underground mining operations. Most often it is worn on a hard hat in the form of a headlamp.
The Astley Deep Pit disaster was a mining accident at the Astley Deep Pit, in Dukinfield, Cheshire, England, that took place on 14 April 1874, killing 54 men and boys. Astley Deep Pit was a coal mine started around 1845 to work the seam of coal known as the "Lancashire Black Mine". When finished, it was supposedly the deepest coal-mine in Britain and cost £100,000 to sink.
The Darr Mine disaster at Van Meter, Rostraver Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, near Smithton, killed 239 men and boys on December 19, 1907. It ranks as the worst coal mining disaster in Pennsylvanian history. Many victims were of immigrants from central Europe, including Rusyns, Hungarians, Austrians, Germans, Poles and Italians.
A headlamp, headlight, or head torch (UK) is a light source affixed to the head typically for outdoor activities at night or in dark conditions such as caving, orienteering, hiking, skiing, backpacking, camping, mountaineering or mountain biking. Headlamps may also be used in adventure races. Headlamps are often used by workers in underground mining, search and rescue, surgeons, and by other workers who need hands-free directed lighting.
The West Stanley Pit disasters refers to two explosions at the West Stanley colliery. West Stanley colliery was a coal mine near Stanley, with the mine opening in 1832 and closing in 1936. Over the years several seams were worked through four shafts: Kettledrum pit, Lamp pit, Mary pit and New pit. In 1882 an underground explosion killed 13 men and in 1909 another explosion killed 168 men.
Six Bells Colliery was a colliery located in Six Bells, Abertillery, Gwent, Wales. On 28 June 1960 it was the site of an underground explosion which killed 45 of the 48 miners working in that part of the mine. It is now the site of the artistically acclaimed Guardian memorial to those events, designed by Sebastian Boyesen; although the memorial primarily commemorates those who died at Six Bells, it is dedicated to all mining communities wherever they may be.
The Benwood Mine Disaster was a coal mine explosion that occurred on Monday, April 28, 1924, at the Benwood Mine of the former Wheeling Steel Corporation steel mill located in the city of Benwood in Marshall County, West Virginia. The explosion claimed the lives of 119 coal miners. There were two survivors. It is the third worst coal mining disaster in the state of West Virginia after the Monongah Mine disaster of December 6, 1907 that claimed the lives of 361 miners and the Eccles Mine Disaster of April 28, 1914 that claimed the lives of 183 miners.
The Torbanlea Colliery Disaster was a 1900 mining accident near the town of Torbanlea in the colony of Queensland that claimed the lives of five workers. The accident prompted a Royal Commission into mining practices within Queensland.
The Lundhill Colliery explosion was a coal mining accident which took place on 19 February 1857 in Wombwell, Yorkshire, UK in which 189 men and boys aged between 10 and 59 died. It is one of the biggest industrial disasters in the country's history and it was caused by a firedamp explosion. It was the first disaster to appear on the front page of the Illustrated London News.
The Maypole Colliery disaster was a mining accident on 18 August 1908, when an underground explosion occurred at the Maypole Colliery, in Abram, near Wigan, then in the historic county of Lancashire, in North West England. The final death toll was 76.
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