page_title: Senghenydd colliery disaster
section_title: Rescue, fire-fighting and recovery: 15 October to 30 November
hierarchical_section_title: Senghenydd colliery disaster / Rescue, fire-fighting and recovery: 15 October to 30 November
caption_attribution_description: English: Salvation Army pitman's coffin
context_page_description: The Senghenydd colliery disaster, also known as the Senghenydd explosion, occurred at the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, near Caerphilly, Glamorgan, Wales, on 14 October 1913. The explosion, which killed 439 miners and a rescuer, is the worst mining accident in the United Kingdom. Universal Colliery, on the South Wales Coalfield, extracted steam coal, which was much in demand. Some of the region's coal seams contained high quantities of firedamp, a highly explosive gas consisting of methane and hydrogen.
  In an earlier disaster in May 1901, three underground explosions at the colliery killed 81 miners. The inquest established that the colliery had high levels of airborne coal dust, which would have exacerbated the explosion and carried it further into the mine workings. The cause of the 1913 explosion is unknown, but the subsequent inquiry thought the most likely cause was a spark from underground signalling equipment that could have ignited any firedamp present.
context_section_description: Work continued throughout the night of 15 October and into the following day. It focused on finding survivors and fighting the fire that blocked the entry into some workings of the western returns. The fire caused the roof supports to become unstable, and falls triggered outbursts of methane. Several rescuers were injured by the falls, one fatally. Before descending the mine many of the firefighters wrote what they thought might be their last letters home, and some made their wills. As the water pipe in the shaft was out of operation, fire-fighting continued with hand extinguishers and work was only possible in 20-minute shifts. Despite wearing respirators, several rescuers were overcome by the effects of firedamp. During the course of the day, 56 bodies were raised to the surface and, that evening, a new water supply, connected by three-quarters of a mile (1.2 km) of pipes to a nearby reservoir, was installed in the Lancaster shaft.
  Reginald McKenna, the Home Secretary, visited the colliery on 15 October representing King George V, who was attending the marriage of Prince Arthur of Connaught and Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife. The king sent a £500 donation to a disaster relief fund; the royal couple displayed their wedding presents at St James's Palace and charged a shilling for entrance, raising £1,200 for the fund. The fund was started by the Lord Mayor of Cardiff; another collection, the Mansion House Fund set up by the Lord Mayor of London, raised more than £3,000 on its first day.
  William Brace, the local MP speaking on behalf of the South Wales Miners' Federation, announced on 16 October that the priority would be given to putting out the fire and that no more search parties would be looking for survivors. Brace observed that the fire was blocking the western workings and consuming the oxygen in the air, making it unlikely that anyone was left alive. Progress in tackling the fire over the previous days had been slow, and it had only been extinguished in the first 30 yards of the roadway—still two miles (3.2 km) from the coal face. Two coroner's inquests were opened: one in Senghenydd for the men who died in the colliery, and one in Cardiff for those who had died in hospital; both were adjourned the same day. The first funerals took place the following day, Friday 17 October. An estimated 150,000 mourners gathered for the 11 men buried on the Saturday and 8 on the Sunday.
  The firefighters built bashings, walls of sandbags, turf and sand, approximately 18 feet (5.5 metres) deep and 17 feet (5.2 metres) up to the tunnel's roof to prevent smoke filling the rest of the workings and allow men to explore areas previously cut off. Within two days the temperatures dropped and the volume of smoke was reduced. The fire was contained, but miners still faced several obstacles, including roof collapses and large pockets of trapped firedamp. The first collapse consisted of more than 100 tons of debris; another fall was more than 300 feet (91.5 metres) long and 30 to 40 feet (10–12 metres) high. Clearing the falls and finding bodies was slow, and it took until 8 November for the first of the 4 working districts to be explored and cleared of bodies. The explosion, fire and subsequent decomposition made it difficult to identify many victims; some had to be identified by their personal effects, and some bodies remained unidentified.
  By 17 November the Mafeking and Pretoria districts had been fully explored, with more than 200 bodies raised to the surface in the preceding two days. On 20 November an official announcement reported that 439 miners had died, of whom 33 were still unaccounted for. Toward the end of the month, the men voted to return to work, even though the western workings were still out of action and 11 bodies were still missing.
  A photographer, W Benton, took a series of photographs as the disaster unfolded, and later published them as a set of postcards. Their publication is described by the National Library of Wales as "an excellent example of early photo-journalism". The photographs came with a caption, sh
caption: The funeral of one of the miners, E Gilbert, a colour sergeant in The Salvation Army
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