Easington Colliery is situated on the coast in the County of Durham, between the ports of Seaham Harbour and West Hartlepool, nine miles north-west of the latter. There are two principal shafts, both circular and both 20 feet in diameter. The North Shaft, the downcast, was sunk to the Hutton Seam at a depth of 1,430 feet, the present winding level being at the Main Coal Inset at a depth of 1,130 feet. The South Shaft, the upcast, is 1,500 feet deep to the Hutton Seam. Both are used for winding men, mineral and materials. A third shaft, the West, 470 feet deep, is connected to the South Shaft by a drift at the 164 feet level. Although sinking was started in 1899, coal drawing did not begin until 1910 because of difficulties encountered in passing through waterbearing strata.

The mine was one of eight forming the No. 3 Area of the Durham Division of the National Coal Board. The principal officials were

Area General Manager		Mr. F. W. Fry
Area Production Manager		Mr. J. P. Hall
Group Agent		Mr. T. N. Sneddon
Assistant Agent		Mr. H. E. Morgan
Manager		Mr. T. Hopkins
Undermanager — North Pit		Mr. H. E. Emery
Undermanager — South Pit		Mr. A. Carr

At the time of the disaster 2,235 persons were employed underground and 652 on the surface. The average daily output was 3,600 tons.

As is common in Durham mines, there were three production shifts, the foreshift, which lasted from 3.30 a.m. to 11.07 am., the back-shift, from 9.45 a.m. to 5.22 p.m., and the night-shift, from 4.0 p.m. to 11.37 p.m. In addition to these main shifts a repair shift known as the stone-shift, consisting mainly of stone workers and coal cutter operators, descended at 10.0 p.m. and ascended at 5.37 a.m.

The workable seams, in descending order, are the Five Quarter, Seven Quarter, Main Coal, Low Main and Hutton. Before the explosion there were 14 producing districts in the North Pit, of which five were in the Five Quarter, two in the Seven Quarter and seven in the Low Main Seam.

Bord and pillar was the usual method of working, the pillars being formed by arcwall heading and extracted by lifts worked with the aid of either pneumatic picks or arcwall machines. Longwall, both advancing and retreating, was also practised.

The explosion occurred in the Five Quarter Seam, in the New or West District, more popularly known as the Duckbill District, the name that I shall use throughout this Report. It lies to the north-west of the shafts and north of an area reserved for the protection of the colliery village.

At the shaft the Five Quarter Seam, including three bands of stone totalling 13 inches, is six feet two inches thick, the roof is of shale seven feet thick, with laminated sandstone and sandy shale above, and the floor is of clay one foot two inches thick, followed by about seven feet of alternate bands of coal and clay. In the Duckbill District the seam is about six feet ten inches thick, the shale is thicker than at the shaft and the floor is fairly hard. The seam is some 1,050 feet deep andit dips at 1 in 32 to the north-east. A sample of the coal taken near to the entrance of the district gave a volatile content of 34.9 per cent, on a dry ash free basis.

From the downcast shaft, as shown in Plan No. 1, the main haulage road and intake airway extends in the Main Coal Seam for 380 yards to the north and then for 640 yards along a road known as the West Level. At this point a stone drift rises at one in six to the north and, passing through the Seven Quarter Seam, enters the Five Quarter Seam. The return airway follows a similar, though more circuitous course, including two short drifts at an inclination of one in two, to the Five Quarter Seam. The West Level and its companion roads in the Main Coal Seam continue for some 600 yards beyond the drifts. No coal was being worked in this area but it was used for training new entrants and was therefore known as the Training Section.

In the Five Quarter Seam from the top of the drifts, three roads, known as the Straight North places, with connecting stentons, continue to the north. From them, at about 200 yards from the top of the drifts, three roads, known as the First West Materials, Belt and Return roads, branch off and, still further to the north, are the roads forming the Second and Third West areas. From the Second West roads, a small area was formed into pillars which were then extracted. The Third West places were open but not working at the time of the explosion. It was from the First West Roads that the area chiefly affected was developed.

Up to the introduction of duckbill machinery in 1948, all these roads were driven by arcwall machines, the coal being blasted down and filled into tubs. The First South places were then driven, using duckbill loaders, into the reserved area. Pillars were formed but faulted ground curtailed further development. Full extraction was then attempted in the unreserved part, firstly by lifts off the pillars, and then by a modified form of longwall retreating, using the duckbill loaders. As neither method was completely successful, it was decided to use duckbill machines for winning out retreating longwall faces to be worked by the conventional method of machine cutting, blasting and hand-filling on to conveyors. The Second South and Third South headings were driven in accordance with this decision.

The Second South headings, having been driven their full distance in readiness for the opening of a longwall face, were temporarily idle at the time of the explosion.

The Third South retreating face had been won out by two headings driven southwards off the First West Materials Road. Originally the headings had been set off 140 yards apart and the intention was to keep them parallel so as to form a face of that length, but the heading which afterwards became the return struck a fault and was turned inwards to avoid crossing it. Thus the two headings converged slightly, and the heading joining them to start the longwall face was 90 yards long. The longwall face began to retreat, by means of machine cuts four feet six inches deep, on 12th April. It had been decided to “cave” the roof in the waste so no packs were built, but at the waste edge a line of steel frame chocks, with mechanical releases, supplemented the wood props and bars. At the time of the explosion the face had travelled 37 yards.

The only other coal producing workings in the district at the end of May were three duckbill headings, Nos. 21, 22 and 24, which were being driven for the purpose of opening out a longwall face to the north of the First West return airway.

A road conveyor system, consisting of 30-inch belts, delivered all the coal to a central loading point on the West Level in the Main Coal Seam. The No. I trunk conveyor extended up the intake drift to the junction with the First West Belt Road where it was fed by No, 2 trunk conveyor, which extended the full length of the First West Belt Road. Feeding on to this conveyor were the Second South and Third South belt conveyors, a belt conveyor in No. 22 heading and scraper chain conveyors in Nos. 21 and 24 headings. All were linked by a system of sequence control.

The district was highly mechanised, the whole of the cutting and part of the loading being done mechanically, and the whole of the coal being conveyed mechanically. All the plant was electrically driven.

Normally, the longwall face was manned on the fore, back and stone-shifts and the duckbill headings on the back and night-shifts only. An average of some 325 tons output was obtained daily, half from the longwall face and half from the headings.

As part of the North Pit the district came under Mr. Emery’s supervision. He was assisted in this district by a fore-overman, a back-overman and a master shifter, in addition to deputies and shotfirers.

Ventilation was produced by a steam driven Walker “Indestructible” fan, 22 feet in diameter. This fan was designed to pass 500,000 cubic feet per minute at six-inch water-gauge and at the time of the disaster was actually producing 423,000 cubic feet per minute at 5.5-inch water-gauge. An electrically driven Sirocco fan, 133 inches in diameter and of similar characteristics, acted as a standby. Both fans were situated on the surface and were connected by fan drifts to both the South and the West shafts.

The ventilation of this mine was complicated by the fact that a very long leg, extending seawards in the Hutton Seam and through a fault into the Low Main Seam to a total distance of four miles from the shafts, had to be balanced against the much nearer districts in the upper seams. As a consequence the air flow in these latter districts had to be closely regulated to ensure that sufficient ventilation reached the far under-sea workings.

The system of ventilation of the Duckbill District itself is shown in Plan No, l. According to the last air measurements made before the disaster, those on 16th May, a quantity of 23,200 cubic feet per minute was reaching the top of the intake drift. Of this 7,700 cubic feet per minute travelled to the idle places in the Third West District. Quantities of 11,000 cubic feet per minute and 3,900 cubic feet per minute passed along the First West Materials and Belt Roads respectively. A quantity of 5,500 cubic feet per minute was taken from these currents to ventilate the standing places in the First South District and this passed through air crossings direct to the First West Return. The Second South places were ventilated by a current of 4,300 cubic feet per minute passing inbye on the Materials Road and through two fans in parallel to the heading faces. This current then returned to the West Materials Road and most of it passed along the Third South Materials and Belt Roads to the longwall face and outbye along the return. Some air may have reached the Third South intakes and the longwall face by passing along the West Materials Road and the extension of the Second South Materials Road to the West Belt Road. On 16th May the quantity reaching the longwall face, where the ventilation was restricted by a fall, was 3,200 cubic feet per minute.

At that time Nos. 21 and 22 headings were ventilated through a breeches tube by an auxiliary fan situated on the Belt Road. Alongside this fan there was a canvas door.

Between 16th May and the time of the disaster important changes occurred. The fall on the longwall face was cleared. The fan ventilating Nos. 21 and 22 headings was transferred to No. 21 stenton and the door in the Belt Road was then removed. Farther along the Belt Road another fan was installed to ventilate No. 24 heading ; up to the time of the disaster this had been run only intermittently. On 28th May a second fan was installed in No. 21 stenton, so that Nos. 21 and 22 were ventilated separately.

Oldham Type G.W. Electric Cap Lamps were used throughout the mine. The flame safety lamps in general use by workmen as gas detectors were Patterson A. 1. (magnetic lock) and Patterson A.3 (lead rivet lock), the latter being in process of conversion to the former type by the lamproom staff as and when the necessary parts became available. Ringrose CH4 lamps were available as automatic detectors but were not used. The officials were supplied with either Wolf Patterson (internal relighter) 7 R or Baby Wolf 7 R.M.B.S. flame safety lamps for gas testing.

The only means of dust suppression in the district were sprays, not in any way enclosed, at the loading point and at three of the transfer points. It was said that each spray delivered about six gallons of water per hour. The suppression of dust by wet cutting and water infusion, which had been carried out satisfactorily in other parts of the mine, had not proceeded beyond experimental stages in the Duckbill District. The cleaning up of coal and coal dust and the spreading of stone dust were done partly by a stone dust team, which visited in turn all the districts of the mine, and partly by men regularly employed in the district. The team, under the charge of an official known as the stone dust man, consisted of seven men and their duty was to clean the floor and sweep the girders and sides, filling the dust into tubs or sacks, and then to apply stone dust.

On the fore-shift a man was employed to clean the conveyor structures and to spread stone dust, and on the back-shift a man dusted the roads near the face.

On the stone-shift eight to ten men were wholly employed, and others spent part of their time, in clearing spillage and stone dusting. They began at the loading point and at the several transfer points and worked towards each other. Spillage was also cleared by the men engaged at the loading point. The total quantity of stone dust supplied to the mine as a whole was 40 tons per month.

The sampling of dust for the North Pit was done by one man who was fully engaged on this work. He took 102 samples each week.