3-077-668 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Llanerch Colliery Disaster, Monmouthshire: the pit's mouth, 1890. 'One of those terrible explosions of gas in the working of coalmines, which cause such great loss of life, took place on Thursday, Feb. 6,...killing 175 persons, men and boys. This mine was considered to be in good order, and very little gas had been observed in it before. It contained a vein of coal 8 ft. thick, which was highly productive. The part where nearly all the men killed were working was that called "Cook's Slope,"...and in it were four headings, known as Nos. 1. 2. 3, and 4. It is evident that the explosion occurred in either No. 1 or 2, for here the dead lay thickest, while farther down the slope the chief cause of death was the "choke damp," or suffocating carbonic acid gas. The terrific blast, however, had traversed the whole of the slope, for, as one of the explorers said, not a single pair of timbers or props was left standing. Fortunately the ventilating fan had not been injured, and a good current of air soon cleansed the whole of the slope and headings from foul gas. The people of the neighbouring villages and hamlets gathered around the colliery, whole families mourning for those whom they had lost, and the scene was most distressing'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.