Mount Kembla - Mine Disaster

Mine Disaster

The Mount Kembla Mine disaster was the worst peace-time disaster of Australia's history, until the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria. It occurred at the colliery adjacent to the village at 2pm on 31 July 1902. The explosion was caused by ignition of gas and coal dust by flames used as torches by the miners. 96 workers were killed by the explosion. Hundreds of people helped in the rescue of survivors.

A quote from the mine manager, William Rogers, stated that the mine was "absolutely without danger from gases", the Illawarra Mercury reported that "gas had never been known to exist in the mine before" and the Sydney Morning Herald recorded "one of the best ventilated mines in the State".

However, after the explosion left 33 widows and 120 fatherless children; an enquiry returned a conclusion that Mount Kembla Mine was both gassy and dusty and that the Meurant brothers and William Nelson "came to their death … from carbon monoxide poisoning produced by an explosion of fire-damp ignited by the naked lights in use in the mine, and accelerated by a series of coal-dust explosions starting at a point in or about the number one main level back headings, and extending in a westerly direction to the small goaf, marked 11 perches on the mine plan."

A royal commission concerning the disaster, held in March, April and May 1903, confirmed the gas and coal-dust theory accepted by the earlier coroner's jury. Rather than holding any individual official of the Mount Kembla Company responsible, the Commission stated that only the substitution of safety lamps for flame lights could have saved the lives of the 96 victims. However, flame lights continued to be used well into the 1940s.

Some of the dead were buried in Mount Kembla's village cemetery, which also contains a 2.5-metre-tall memorial to the disaster, listing the names of the miners and two rescuers who perished. The majority were buried in the more remote Windy Gully cemetery, 1.5 kilometres south-west of the village, at which an annual memorial ceremony is observed during the Mt Kembla Mining Heritage Festival on the weekend after 31 July.