The Times
Friday March 23 1962
16 Miners killed by explosion
Nurse goes down to aid injured.
From our northern correspondent
Burnley March 22
Sixteen miners were killed by a coal explosion at Hapton Valley Colliery, near here, this morning. A further 21 men were injured. Tonight it was stated that one of them was very seriously ill and the condition of 13 others was serious.
Officials of the North Western Divisional Coal Board were tonight trying to establish the cause of the explosion, which occurred at one end of the 140-yard-long No.2 face of the Union seam, 250 yards below ground at the 100-year old pit.
"There was a terrible blast and we were all blown 10 or 15 yards along the face", said Mr. Jack Murray, aged 36, of Jockey Street, Burnley, senior man of the 90 fillers who were shovelling coal on their hands and knees. Other workers were close behind when the explosion happened at 9:45a.m.
"The next thing I knew was that I couldn't see a thing because of the thickness of coal dust in the air", said Mr. Murray, who suffered burns on his arms. "Some of the other 170 men working in the pit at the time were on the spot almost immediately with stretchers to carry out the wounded."
Gave Morphia
While two rescue teams raced from the coalfield's station at Boothstown, the pit's resident nursing sister, Mrs Maud Waggett, aged 45, put on overalls and helmet and went to the face to give morphia to wounded and dying men.
Shortly afterwards she was joined by the pit doctor, Dr. Francis Halliwell, who had been called from another pit. He injected pain-relieving drugs and dressed the burns of the injured men.
"It was like a battlefield down there", said another collier, Mr. T. Allison, aged 24, of Irene Street, Burnley. "We were working a quarter of a mile away when our ears 'popped' and a rush of air filled the working with dust. Coal tubs 1,400 yards away were blown over."
Relatives were joined by the Bishop of Burnley, The Rt. Rev. G. Holderness, and other clergy as they clustered in the yard of the pit they know as "Happy Valley" for four hours until the last of the victims was brought out along a 1,800-yard drift roadway.
All those killed were from Burnley, among them a miner whose wife is expecting a fourth child, two young men who were to have been married soon, and a 16-year-old boy whose job it was to take supplies to the coal face. Relatives of the dead were taken to the pit tonight by police to identify the bodies of the men.
Quick Response
Mr. J. Anderton, chairman of the divisional board, said rescue, police and ambulance workers could not have repsonded more quickly to the tragedy.
It is the first in the Lancashire coalfields since 1959, when five men lost their lives in an accident at Bickershaw Colliery, and the biggest in the division since nationalization.
An investigation into the cause of the explosion was started tonight. A mobile laboratory was set up at the pithead and samples were brought from the coalface. Below ground a team of officials made a technical examination.
A full report into the cause of the explosion can be read at
http://www.dmm2.org.uk/uknames/1845-01.htm
Casualties - Taken from
http://www.dmm.org.uk/mindex.htm
Killed
Christopher William Brown, Age 55, Driller
Samson Henry Bullen, Age 44, Deputy
James Cummings, Age 19, Supplies Man
Robert Dunston, Age 26, Ripper
Stanley Faulkes, Age 41, Filler
John William Halstead, Age 53, Deputy/Shotfirer
George Hartley, Age 32, Mechanic
Raymond Ernest Howarth, Age 20, Electrician
Tom Isherwood, Age 49, Face Scraper Operator
Donald Stewart McGoogan, Age 28, Mechanic
Garry Pickles, Age 22, Electrician
John Robinson, Age 24, Filler
Donald Rushton, Age 33, Ripper
Robert Shuttleworth, Age 33, Filler
Ronnie anthiny Taylor, Age 16, Supplies Man
Benjamin Wals, Age 25, Filler
Died from injuries
John Grieg Barritt, Age 23, Electrician
Joseph Forrest, Age 17, Supplies Man
Peter tinsley, Age 16, Apprentice Electrician
Seriously Injured
James Allen, Age 48, Conveyor Maintenance Man
Neville Edward Barker, Age 24, Filler
Brian Bullen, Age 23, Filler
George Dyson, Age 34, Filler
Alan Fisk, Age 24, Filler
Brian Greenwood, Age 23, Filler
John Heywood, Age 24, Filler
Joseph Madden, Age 46, Filler
Jack Myers, Age 35, Filler
John Pinder, Age 28, Filler
Robert Pinder, Age 25, Filler
Henry Dransfield Walker, Age 39, filler
George Walsh, Age 21, Filler