For some time before the accident work had been in progress in the Brockwell Seam from the View Pit in the district known as Robson's Bord Flat shown on the right hand side of Plate III.

The workings which were bord and pillar were advancing in an easterly direction. On the night of Friday, 27th March, 1925, Fenton and Perkins who had been working for two or three weeks in this flat were hewing coal in the heading marked "Point of Inrush" on Plate III, distant in a straight line 1,470 yards, or following the roadway 1,689 yards, from the pit bottom. At 11 p.m. they stopped working and returned to the surface. No work was done in this heading until the following Monday morning when the accident occurred. On the right hand side of the working face as they left it there was a projection or "jud" of unworked coal about 6 feet wide and about 3½ feet deep projecting from the face into the heading. This was in ordinary course the next piece of coal to be taken out, but when it was left by Fenton and Perkins on the Friday night it was still intact and no shot holes had been drilled in it. Neither Fenton nor Perkins had any apprehension of any danger ahead. The place was a reasonably dry one and the small quantities of water which gathered and were regularly tubbed and removed did not suggest anything abnormal. No complaints were ever made regarding the presence of water in this area and Fenton indeed stated that there had latterly been less water than before.

At midnight on Sunday, 29th March, 1925, Joseph Robson, the deputy in charge of the district, entered the View Pit and between 3.30 a.m. and 4.45 am. made his examination of the workings preparatory to admitting the morning shift. Small quantities of water had accumulated in the various working places since the cessation of work on the preceding Friday night, but nothing unusual, and directions were given by Robson for its removal in the ordinary way. There was no water at the working face. Having found everything to be satisfactory, Robson returned to the "Kist," on the Irish ropeway and wrote out his statutory report. This report, dated 30th March, 1925, was recovered some seven or eight months later and although it had been under water was still legible. It ran as follows :—

Noxious or inflammable gases	None.
State of ventilation	Good.
Condition of roof and sides	All right.
Supply of Timber:
(a) Working places	Good
(b) Pass-byes, sidings, etc	Good
Other matters affecting safety and remarks	Satisfactory.

The shift was thereafter admitted and as Fenton and Perkins had "slept in," two other men, Matthew Errington and W. Guthrie obtained the deputy's permission to work in their place, where the coal was easier to get. In all there were working in the Brockwell Seam of the View Pit on that morning 107 men and 41 boys who were disposed as shown on the plan (Plate III) of the seam annexed hereto.

When Errington and Guthrie started work at the place assigned to them they found the projection already mentioned at the working face and drilled two shot holes into it about a yard deep and also a shot hole into the face on the left of the projection. About 9.30 a.m. Robson charged and fired these three shots which did their work, the two in the "jud" bringing down six or seven tubs of coal and roughly straightening the line of the coal face. Robson then left the place, but at about a quarter to ten received a message from Errington, brought by the putter, James Tracy, to the effect that Errington thought he had "holed." Going back into the face Robson found a little trickle of water coming through about the middle of the seam between the two shots in the "jud." There appeared to be no pressure behind it but as its smell was unpleasant he "knew it was not virgin coal water," and going out a little way he told his son, the water-leader James Robson, to fetch one of the overmen.

Just after the boy had set off, a bang was heard. Telling his son and the putter Tracy to run, the deputy again turned into the bord but after going about five yards he saw the water rushing towards him the whole height of the bord. His lamp was extinguished owing, he believed, to gas coming in front of the water.

Robson ran after his son and Tracy, who coupled up some tubs and, with two drivers who were found on the road, were drawn outbye by a pony to the main road. The drivers, with Robson's son and Tracy, continued their journey outbye, but Robson turned inbye, went down into the workings at the Dip Hitch Flat (see Plate III) and brought out the five men who were in that district. The eight men remaining in "Robson's Bord Flat" were working close to the point of inrush and were no doubt drowned in a very short time.

As these lower workings filled the water began to rush across the Irish Ropeway (see Plate III) and the travelling road which runs parallel with it which communicates with the workings to the North in No. 1 and No. 2 Bord Flats on the east and the High Side Bord Flat (4th Headways) on the north-west where a number of men were working. The water pouring into the Irish Ropeway was noticed by lads who were fortunately able to warn a number of the men working in other districts. Unhappily, however, the water immediately, began to fill a "swelly" or depression which is shown coloured green on the plan (Plate III) running east and west across the Irish Ropeway and the Return, with the result that sometime before the workings generally were flooded all the escape roads were filled to the roof where they cross this depression The majority of the men who escaped had to wade through some feet of water when crossing the "swelly" and but for the speed with which the water "roofed" here it is possible that at least, 17 other men would have been able to reach safety. The bodies of these 17 men were found close together at the flat in the 4th Headways lying in attitudes which suggested that they had been suffocated by blackdamp before the workings at that point were flooded.

The remaining 13 bodies were recovered from lower districts, the men probably having been drowned in the early stages of the inrush.

It should be placed on record here that the back overman; Sam Evans, lost his life by going inbye through the "swelly," although it was then filling up with water, in an attempt to get at the missing men and thereafter being unable to return owing to the swiftness with which the water rose.