Description

No. 74 accident in the list was in a new pit being sunk to improve the ventilation at North Hetton Colliery. Two sinkers had prepared shots for blasting stone in the pit bottom, applied the lights to explode them, and were then drawn tip the pit in a kibble. One of the men fell out of the kibble to the bottom of the pit and was killed.

The evidence in this case was to the effect, that although the kibble, or iron tub in which deceased and another workman were, had been drawn 24 fathoms up the sinking pit at the time the shots exploded below them in the bottom of the pit (a distance considerably greater than is usual under such circumstances), yet that some of the fragments of the blasted rocks were projected up the pit above them, and one of the pieces of stone in its fall downwards hit the deceased and knocked him out of the iron tub or kibble in which he was suspended in the pit.

Accidents Nos. 32 and 74 in the list arose from the operation of blasting in sinking pits. The former appeared to indicate that the use of fuses for blasting is preferable to the straws often employed in this district; the latter accident, if the evidence may be relied upon, seems to indicate that the stones had been projected about 180 feet vertically in the shaft, an occurrence of so rare a character, that I do not feel at liberty to base any general conclusions upon it, as I should have thought the men far out of the reach of danger from the explosion of the blasting charge at such an elevation.

Sources

• 1857 Mines Inspectors Report

Researchers

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