![]() Methane detectors that were disconnected because of frequent alarms.Unauthorized mine layout, forcing miners to work risky tunnels to get the coal out faster.Inadequate ventilation design and maintenance that failed to keep methane and coal dust at safe levels.Richard's report zeroed in on Curragh Resources Inc., the private company that managed the coal mine, and government inspectors who ignored glaring safety abuses, among them: Justice Richard's report on the tragedy – the inquiry took five years and cost nearly $5 million – says it all: The Westray Story: A Predictable Path to Disaster. It involved corporate greed, bureaucratic bungling and government incompetence of the highest order. The tragedy of Westray goes far beyond a simple, ghastly accident. Between 18, the peak years of coal mining in Pictou County, 246 miners were killed in similar methane-and-coal-dust explosions, many of them working the rich Foord seam that became part of the Westray operation.īetween 18, another 330 miners were killed in other accidents – mangled in machinery, buried under stone, squashed in coal-car collisions. Nearly 500 guests attended the official opening and the local member of Parliament, then revenue minister Elmer MacKay, arrived from Ottawa to cut the ribbon on a project that promised 300 badly needed jobs that would last at least 15 years.Ĭoal mining has always been dangerous work. In July 1991, Liberal MLA Bernie Boudreau sent a letter to Nova Scotia Labour Minister Leroy Legere warning that the new Westray coal mine scheduled to open in two months near Stellarton "is potentially one of the most dangerous in the world."īut that wasn't enough to stop the Westray mine from opening on Sept. In fact, Westray's very existence was controversial from the very start. Justice Peter Richard in his report on the explosion and fire at the coal mine in Pictou County that day. ![]() "The Westray story is a complex mosaic of actions, omissions, mistakes, incompetence, apathy, cynicism, stupidity and neglect," said Mr. In all, there were 26 men underground at the time, most of them in the final hours of a four-day shift. Homes more than a kilometre away shuddered as the shock wave rumbled through the earth. Within seconds, a huge fireball raced through the mine, stirring up coal dust that exploded in a thundering blast.Ī blue-grey flash lit up the pre-dawn sky. On May 9, 1992, at 5:18 a.m., far beneath the small town of Plymouth, N.S., a sudden gush of methane gas escaped from the Foord coal seam and erupted into flames.
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