The Nanshan Colliery disaster is a fatal gas explosion that occurred on November 13, 2006 at the Nanshan Colliery in Lingshi County, Jinzhong, Shanxi Province, China. [1] Twenty-four people were killed. The mine was operating without any safety licence as its original had expired. While no official cause has emerged, the news agency Xinhua claims the explosion was triggered by incorrect usage of explosives.
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.
Afterdamp is the toxic mixture of gases left in a mine following an explosion caused by methane-rich firedamp, which itself can initiate a much larger explosion of coal dust. The term is etymologically and practically related to other terms for underground mine gases—such as firedamp, white damp, and black damp, with afterdamp being composed, rather, primarily by carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen, with highly toxic stinkdamp-constituent hydrogen sulfide possibly also present. However, the high content of carbon monoxide is the component that kills, preferentially combining with haemoglobin in the blood and thus depriving victims of oxygen. Globally, afterdamp has caused many of the casualties in disasters of pit coalfields, including British, such as the Senghenydd colliery disaster. Such disasters continue to afflict working mines, for instance in mainland China.
The Nanaimo mine explosion occurred on May 3, 1887, in Nanaimo, British Columbia killing 150 miners. Only seven miners survived and the mine burned for one full day.
The Sunjiawan mine disaster was a mine disaster that occurred on 14 February 2005 in Fuxin city, Liaoning province, in the northeastern part of the People's Republic of China. Initial reports indicated that at least 214 coal miners were killed, making it the worst mining disaster in China in at least 15 years.
Benxihu (Honkeiko) Colliery, located in Benxi, Liaoning, China, was first mined in 1905. Originally an iron and coal mining project under joint Japanese and Chinese control, the mine came under predominantly Japanese control. In the early 1930s, Japan invaded the northeast of China, and Liaoning province became part of the Japanese-controlled puppet state of Manchukuo. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese forced Chinese labourers—some of whom had been captured from local military organizations—to work the colliery under very poor conditions. Food was scarce and workers did not have sufficient clothing. Working conditions were harsh, and diseases such as typhoid and cholera flourished due to poor sanitation and water supplies. Typically miners worked 12-hour shifts or longer. The Japanese controllers were known to beat workers with pick handles, and the perimeter of the mine was fenced and guarded. Many describe the conditions as slave labour.
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.
Balmain Colliery was a coal mine located in Birchgrove in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It produced coal from 1897 until 1931 and natural gas from 1937 to 1950. At approximately 800 metres (2,600 ft) in depth, it remains the deepest coal mine ever to have been sunk in Australia.
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.
The Minnie Pit disaster was a coal mining accident that took place on 12 January 1918 in Halmer End, Staffordshire, in which 155 men and boys died. The disaster, which was caused by an explosion due to firedamp, is the worst ever recorded in the North Staffordshire Coalfield. An official investigation never established what caused the ignition of flammable gases in the pit.
The Shanxi mine blast was a pre-dawn explosion that occurred in a mine in Gujiao city near Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province of China on 21 February 2009. Four hundred and thirty six were in the mine at the time of the explosion. According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, rescue efforts concluded at 6 p.m. (CST), February 22 with all trapped miners located; the death toll was 74, with 114 in the hospital and five in critical condition. Many of the injured are being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. The death toll indicates that this is the most lethal accident reported in China's mining industry since December 2007, when 105 people died in a mine explosion—that accident also took place in Shanxi.
Universal Colliery was a coal mine located in Senghenydd in the Aber Valley, roughly four miles north-west of the town of Caerphilly. It was in the county borough of Caerphilly, traditionally in the county of Glamorgan, Wales.
The Wangjialing coal mine flood was an incident that began on Sunday, March 28, 2010, when underground water flooded parts of the Wangjialing coal mine in the Shanxi province of People's Republic of China. A total of 261 people were in the mine when workers first broke through an abandoned shaft that was filled with water. Over 100 managed to escape, but 153 workers were trapped in nine different platforms of the mine.
The Yuanyang colliery outburst occurred at the privately run Yuanyang colliery in Puding County, Anshun, Guizhou, People's Republic of China, at 9:40 p.m. on 13 May 2010. At least 21 people were killed and at least five were wounded.
Events in the year 2006 in China.
The Xiaojiawan coal mine disaster was a mining accident which happened on 29 August 2012 at the Xiaojiawan coal mine, located in Panzhihua in Sichuan Province, China. It was the deadliest mine accident since the 2009 Heilongjiang mine explosion. As a result of a gas explosion in the Xiaojiawan coal mine, at least 46 miners were killed. 51 were sent to hospital with seven in critical condition. It was reported that 16 miners died from carbon monoxide poisoning, while three others died in hospital.
Events in the year 1942 in China.
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.
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