Single Record

Full Details

Surname

NK

Forename

NK

Day

NK

Month

NK

Year

1926

Age

Occupation

Mine/Quarry Name

Auchengeich

Mineral Worked

Coal

Owner

James Nimmo & Co. Ltd

Location

Chryston

County

Lanarkshire

Details of Event

Information from the Inspectors of Mines - 1926: Explosion: At Auchengeich Colliery, Lanark, an explosion occurred in which a shot firer and two brushers who were beside him were involved. A small longwall section with a good roof and hard pavement had crossed a 3 ft. upthrow fault some time previously and the brushing or ripping of the roads was taken for convenience from the floor. A shot hole was bored in the brushing at floor level and charged with 24 oz. Samsonite No. 3. The shot firer, who had formerly been a fireman for years in the colliery and who knew the gassy nature of the seam, had inspected for gas all round the roof and into the waste as far as he could get. He also inspected - though, as he admitted at the Fatal Accident Inquiry, only casually and not so particularly as at the roof and at a fault near by - round the shot hole in the floor. There was an excellent air current travelling along the face and out the road. The shot firer fired the shot from the adjoining roadhead where he was sheltering two brushers, and immediately afterwards flame came from the waste between the road where the shot was and that in which he was, and the tail of the flame reached him, burned him and one of the brushers beside him and reddened the arm of the other. The shot firer thought first of continuing to the finish of his shift, but decided to go home, and he and the other two men walked to the shaft, a distance of 1,380 yds., part of it by a cold intake airway. The brusher who was burned died seven days later, and while there were other known circumstances contributing to his death, the long walk to the shaft bottom seems to have played a part also judging by the number of cases which I have noted during my service as an Inspector of Mines. I think it worth while to repeat what I said in my Report of 1920:- "It has come to my notice many times in the course of my duties that a man, apparently only slightly injured by burning, has walked a considerable distance underground, then perhaps to his home after reaching the surface, and a few days later, to the surprise of his friends and even his medical attendant, he succumbs. No man who is unfortunate enough to be burned by an inflammation of gas should exert himself beyond responding to that natural tendency,which it is probably wrong to resist, viz., to put a little distance between himself and the resulting afterdamp, even although he may feel perfectly fit and well.'' The most important question to be answered in regard to this explosion is: How did a well-placed charge of a permitted explosive down in a pavement brushing where a good air current was passing ignite gas in a waste the floor of which was 3ft. Higher up and was undoubtedly partly swept by the air current short circuiting through an open pack ? I was finally driven by the elimination of the other possibilities to the conclusion that gas had been issuing from a break which crossed the floor immediately outside the mouth of the shot hole and had not been detected by the shot firer ; that this gas was lit at the open edge of the break by flame from the shot which was rather heavily charged for the work it had to do ; that the gas flame travelled then along the open edge of one of several longitudinal breaks which crossed the cross breaks in the floor ; and that at another open cross break several feet outbye it travelled into the inaccessible waste under the loose pack and there lit a gas accumulation. The cross breaks in the floor came out from the 3 ft. fault already mentioned at right angles and the longitudinal breaks which appeared on the road approximately parallel to the fault were offshoots from it from deeper down with a flatter hade than the fault itself. Both sets of breaks had therefore connection to the fault and, as this fault gave off gas freely, ;I source of supply to fill the breaks and overflow was evident. The whole place was well stone dusted and coal dust played no part in the accident. Samsonite No. 3 from the explosive canister and from the same consignment was tested and found to conform as to composition and condition. Detonators were also tested and found to be in order.