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The Gresford Disaster occurred on 22 September 1934 at Gresford Colliery, Gresford near Wrexham, in north-east Wales when an explosion killed 266 men and boys. The cause was never proved but an inquiry found that a number of factors such as failures in safety procedures and poor mine management contributed to the disaster. Gresford remains one of Britain's worst coal mining disasters and mining accidents. Only eleven bodies were ever recovered. The remains of the other victims were left entombed within the colliery's permanently-sealed damaged districts. ==Background== The Westminster and United Collieries Group began to sink the pit at Gresford in 1908. Two shafts were sunk apart: the Dennis (named after the industrialist Dennis family of Ruabon who were the pit owners) and the Martin. Work was completed in 1911. The mine was one of the deepest in the Denbighshire Coalfield: the Dennis shaft reached depths of about and the Martin shaft about . By 1934, 2,200 coal miners were employed at the colliery, with 1,850 working underground and 350 on the surface. Three coal seams were worked at Gresford: #Crank (Martin), a seam producing high-quality household coal. No firedamp. #Brassey (Martin, part Dennis), a to seam delivering harder 'steam' coal for commercial use. No firedamp. #Main (Dennis), a seam that produced softer industrial coal. But very prevalent to firedamp. The explosion occurred within the Main seam of Dennis. This section, which began more than from the shaft bottom, was mined down a shallow gradient. Dennis was divided into six "districts": 20's, 61's, 109's, 14's and 29's. The sixth district was a very deep area known collectively as the "95's and 24's".〔''(Gresford Colliery Explosion )'', ''Hansard'', House of Commons, 23 February 1937〕 All the districts in Dennis were worked by the longwall system where the coal face was mined in single blocks. Most districts in the Dennis section were mechanised except 20's and 61's, which were still worked by hand, because they were furthest from the main shaft (approx ). Conditions in the mine prior to the explosion were presented into evidence at the inquiry into the disaster. Firstly underground mine ventilation in some districts of Dennis was probably inadequate; in particular, the 14's and 29's districts were notorious for poor air quality. The main return airway for the 109's, 14's and 29's districts was said to be by and far too small to provide adequate ventilation.〔''(Report by Sir Henry Walker )'', March 1937, in Colliery Engineering at Durham Mining Museum〕 Secondly working conditions in the deep 95's and 24's district were always uncomfortably hot.〔 Thirdly there were also numerous breaches of safety regulations such as the firing of explosive charges in 14's district and the failure to take dust samples.〔 The disaster inquiry was told that one of the pit deputies (whose job was in theory to oversee the safety of the workings) admitted that he also carried out shotfiring during his shifts, in addition to his other duties. It was revealed that he fired more charges during his shift than a full-time shotfirer could have safely carried out.〔 Furthermore the colliery had made an operating loss in 1933, and the pit manager, William Bonsall, had been under pressure from the Dennis family to increase profitability.〔''(Inquiry Failed to Heal the Wounds )'', Wrexham Chronicle, 30 September 2004〕 Bonsall was not a trained mining engineer and at Gresford the role of Mine Agent, which would normally be held by a technically experienced person with authority to stand up to both manager and owners, had not been filled for some time since the previous Agent's retirement. Bonsall admitted he had spent little time in the Dennis section of the pit in the months before the disaster, as he was overseeing the installation of new machinery in the "Slant", an area in the south-eastern part of the mine's Martin section.〔 Work on improving the Dennis section ventilation had been halted, and the inquiry's chair later confessed to "an uneasy feeling that Mr. Bonsall was overridden" on the matter.〔(Gresford Inquiry Report, Ch. 12 ), Durham Mining Museum〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gresford disaster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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