The Darr Mine Disaster at Van Meter, Rostraver Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, near Smithton, killed 239 men and boys on December 19, 1907. It ranks as the worst coal mining disaster in Pennsylvania history.
An inquiry carried out after the disaster determined that the blast was the result of miners carrying open lamps in an area cordoned off the previous day by the fire boss. The mine’s owner, the Pittsburgh Coal Company was not held responsible but abandoned the use of open lamps after the disaster.
The Darr Mine blast was the third major mine disaster in December 1907 (which would become the deadliest mine fatality month in US history); it followed the Monongah Mining disaster in West Virginia on December 6 that killed 361 miners and the Naomi Mine explosion on December 1 that killed 34 people in Fayette City, PA.
Famous quotes containing the word disaster:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)