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Safety concerns follow Welsh mining disaster

20 September 2011

Concerns have been raised about the safety of miners following the death of four men after a retaining wall apparently collapsed in a colliery in Wales.

The incident in the Swansea Valley resulted in a substantial rescue operation, but none of the four miners trapped in the Gleision drift mine survived the flooding.

An investigation into the tragedy at Cilybebyll, Pontardawe, has been launched by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to ensure that standards in the industry are being met and a report will be produced outlining its findings.

It has been suggested that floodwater in old mine workings may have been responsible for the incident in which Charles Breslin, Phillip Hill, Garry Jenkins and David Powell perished.

Calls have been made for conditions to be improved in order to prevent such accidents from happening in the future, with Dr Eric Wade of the Open University telling the BBC that such work is dangerous and more is needed to reduce risk in the mining profession.

"If you're going to work in these areas before you start your mine up you should attempt to dewater some of the old workings and this would give you another margin of safety," he declared.

According to the HSE, there were three fatal injuries in the UK coal mining sector during 2009-10, 43 non-fatal major injuries and 312 over three-day injuries.

The body will work alongside the Wales Office, South Wales Police and specialist mine inspectors in order to determine the cause of the disaster and identify whether there are ways in which it might have been prevented.

"A full report into the causes of the accident will be published in due course to ensure that any lessons can be applied. At this stage it is too early to state possible causes," a statement by the investigating team read.

A major search and rescue operation took place when it emerged that the miners were trapped underground by the flooding. Three individuals managed to escape, one of whom is still in a critical condition in hospital.