The Sheppton Mine disaster and rescue in Sheppton, Pennsylvania, United States, was one of the first rescues of trapped miners accomplished by raising them through holes bored through solid rock, an event that gripped the world's attention during August 1963. [1]
The roof of the Sheppton anthracite coal mine collapsed on August 13 and three miners were trapped 300 feet below ground. A small borehole was drilled from the surface in an attempt to contact the miners. [2] After several days a borehole successfully reached a mine, and revealed that two of the miners, Henry Throne and David Fellin, had survived in a small, narrow chamber. Rescuers dropped provisions to the miners and subsequent larger boreholes were made, including the final large hole bored with the assistance of billionaire Howard Hughes, and the two surviving miners were successfully raised to the surface on August 27. Attempts to contact the third miner, Louis Bova, were unsuccessful. [3]
In 1971, The Buoys recorded a hit single "Timothy", about three miners trapped underground due to a cave-in, with only two of them surviving and a strong implication they survived by cannibalizing the third. This led many to assume the song was inspired by the Sheppton disaster, but songwriter Rupert Holmes insisted he had never heard of the incident and would not have written the song if he had. Lead singer Bill Kelly backed up this account. [4]
In 2015, a Pennsylvania state historical marker was installed near the site where a third miner remains entombed. [5] (subscription required) [6]
That same year, the book Sheppton: The Myth, Miracle & Music, explored themes of the miraculous and supernatural at the Sheppton disaster site. [7] After they were rescued, Throne and Fellin related similar stories of having seen human-like figures (including the recently deceased Pope John XXIII), crosses, stairs, and other religious imagery. While the shared visions were similar, they varied enough in the details to suggest the miners had experienced folie à deux. [8]
On 7 November 1963, 11 West German miners were rescued from a collapsed mine after surviving for 14 days, an event that later became known as the Wunder von Lengede.
Springhill mining disaster may refer to any of three deadly Canadian mining disasters that occurred in 1891, 1956, and 1958 in different mines within the Springhill coalfield, near the town of Springhill in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. In the 1891 accident, 125 died; in 1956, 39 were killed; and in 1958, there were 75 miners killed.
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.
The Knox Mine disaster was a mining accident on January 22, 1959, at the River Slope Mine in Jenkins Township, Pennsylvania.
The Quecreek Mine rescue took place in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, when nine miners were trapped underground for over 77 hours, from July 24 to 28, 2002. All nine miners were rescued.
The Sago Mine disaster was a coal mine explosion on January 2, 2006, at the Sago Mine in Sago, West Virginia, United States, near the Upshur County seat of Buckhannon. The blast and collapse trapped 13 miners for nearly two days; only one survived. It was the worst mining disaster in the United States since the Jim Walter Resources Mine disaster in Alabama on September 23, 2001, and the worst disaster in West Virginia since the 1968 Farmington Mine disaster. It was exceeded four years later by the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster, also a coal mine explosion in West Virginia, which killed 29 miners in April 2010.
Mine rescue or mines rescue is the specialised job of rescuing miners and others who have become trapped or injured in underground mines because of mining accidents, roof falls or floods and disasters such as explosions.
The Beaconsfield gold mine collapsed on 25 April 2006 in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia. Of the seventeen people who were in the mine at the time, fourteen escaped immediately following the collapse, one miner was killed, while the remaining two were found alive on the sixth day by miners Pat Ball and Steve Saltmarsh. Webb and Russell were rescued on 9 May 2006, two weeks after being trapped nearly 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) below the surface.
"Timothy" is a pop rock song recorded by The Buoys as a single in 1970. The song describes a mine cave-in and aftermath, with the implication the two survivors cannibalized their companion, the eponymous Timothy. Written by Rupert Holmes, who also performed piano on the song, "Timothy" was conceived from the band being forced to promote their first single without the aid of their label, Scepter Records. Holmes' solution was to have the song generate attention by depicting a controversial subject.
Moose River Gold Mines is a Canadian rural community located in Nova Scotia's Halifax Regional Municipality. It is at the junction of Moose River Road and Mooseland Road. No numbered highways run through Moose River Gold Mines. Gold was discovered in the area in 1866 and mining started in the 1870s. Interest waned around 1900 but rose in the 1930s. The community gained international attention in 1936 when three men were trapped in the mine.
The Crandall Canyon Mine, formerly Genwal Mine, was an underground bituminous coal mine in northwestern Emery County, Utah.
The 2010 Copiapó mining accident, also known then as the "Chilean mining accident", began on 5 August 2010, with a cave-in at the San José copper–gold mine, located in the Atacama Desert 45 kilometers (28 mi) north of the regional capital of Copiapó, in northern Chile. Thirty-three men were trapped 700 meters (2,300 ft) underground and 5 kilometers (3 mi) from the mine's entrance, and were rescued after 69 days.
A Dahlbusch Bomb is an emergency evacuation device for use in mining. In its original form it is a torpedo-shaped cylinder with a length of 2.5 metres, developed to transport trapped miners through boreholes after mining accidents. It does not contain explosives: it was called a "bomb" because of its shape.
The 2010 Copiapó mining accident began as a cave-in on 5 August 2010 at the San José copper-gold mine in the Atacama Desert near Copiapó, Chile. The accident left 33 men trapped 700 meters (2,300 ft) below ground who survived underground for a record 69 days. All 33 men were rescued and brought to the surface on 13 October 2010 over a period of almost 24 hours. After the last trapped miner was winched to the surface, the rescue workers still underground held up a sign before the camera stating "Misión cumplida Chile" to the estimated more than 1 billion people watching the rescue on live television around the world.
The 33 is a 2015 biographical disaster-survival drama film directed by Patricia Riggen and written by Mikko Alanne, Craig Borten, Michael Thomas, and José Rivera. The film is based on the real events of the 2010 Copiapó mining disaster, in which a group of thirty-three miners were trapped inside the San José Mine in Chile for 69 days. The film stars Antonio Banderas as trapped miner Mario Sepúlveda.
The Coalbrook mining disaster is the worst mining accident in the history of South Africa. The disaster occurred in the Coalbrook coal mine of Clydesdale Colliery on 21 January 1960 at around 19:00 when approximately 900 pillars caved in, almost 180 metres (590 ft) underground. The mine is situated in the Northern Free State, 21 kilometres (13 mi) south west of Vereeniging. About 1,000 miners were in the mine at the time and 437 died after being trapped, while the rest escaped through an incline shaft. The miners were suffocated by methane gas and crushed to death by rockfall.
Kunustoria Area is one of the 14 operational areas of Eastern Coalfields Limited located in Asansol subdivision of Paschim Bardhaman district in the state of West Bengal, India.
The Meghalaya mining accident happened on 13 December 2018, when 15 miners were trapped in a mine in Ksan, in the Indian state of Meghalaya. While five miners managed to escape, rescue efforts for the remaining 10 continued till 2 March 2019. The miners were trapped inside the coal mine at a depth of around 370 feet in Jaintia Hills district after digging with the rat-hole mining technique. The tunnel the miners were in flooded with water after they cut into an adjacent mine which was full of water from the nearby Lytein river.
The Giroux Consolidated Company experienced two mining accidents at a copper mine in Ely, Nevada, one on December, 4 1907 and another on August 24, 1911.
Rat-hole mining or Rat mining is a process of digging employed in North East India to extract coal, where a narrow hole is manually dug by extraction workers. The practice is banned by the National Green Tribunal; however, the techniques are still employed by artisanal mining operations in several parts of India, especially in Meghalaya.
George Harvan covered the mine cave-in at Sheppton in August 1963 for Life magazine. Taking off as much time as he needed from his work for Bethlehem Steel, Harvan captured the tension and anxiety that accompanied the rescue process.