Disasters - Names		Disasters - Names

Date:	26th June 1907
Colliery:	Littleburn
Cause:	Accident caused by explosive
Lives Lost:	1

The second accident occurred on the 26th June at Littleburn Colliery belonging to Messrs. The North Brancepeth Coal Co., Limited, in the Brockwell Seam. The stoneman who was killed and his marrow were going to blow up a bottom caunch which was about 3' 0" deep by 7' 0" wide in a cross gateway. They drilled a hole five feet deep and charged it with two pounds of Cornish powder, putting in the primer with the fuse attached last. The man afterwards killed lighted up the fuse and retired along the face to the left, whilst his marrow came back down the crossgate to the right hand gateway. This latter man said he heard the hole explode in the usual course but he did not go back to it at once as he had to get a tub in which to fill the debris. When he had procured a tub and was on his way in-bye with it, about fifteen minutes after he had heard the shot explode, he saw his marrow, who had come back along the face, jump off the caunch into the cut. Almost immediately the shot exploded again and threw the debris over his marrow, so injuring him that he died in Durham Infirmary the following day. The man was quite positive in his statement that the shot exploded twice. He also said that although they had another explosive with them, Bobbinite, they had the Cornish powder only in the hole, and that there was only one fuse and one detonator. I put the facts before Capt. Lloyd, H.M. Inspector of Explosives, and he informed me that similar circumstances were known to have taken place with the like explosives previously, and that such occurrences were due to one of two causes, viz.: (1) the use of a weak detonator or one which has slipped out of the cartridge but is resting close to it. In this case when the detonator explodes there is a good chance that it will ignite the cartridge and that the cartridge will burn until the gases thus given off create sufficient pressure to cause the remainder of the cartridge to explode. (2) It is possible that smouldering fuse will ignite a cartridge but in such a case as the above it would be more likely for the cartridge to be ignited by a side spit from the fuse before the detonator itself was fired, but this would only be likely to happen when the detonator was deeply embedded in the cartridge.

Source:

1907 Mines Inspectors Report (Cd 4045), Durham District (No. 4) by R. D. Bain, H.M. Inspector of Mines

	Dickinson, Thomas, aged 42, Stoneman, he returned to a shot thinking it had already exploded
	All names found

 

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