The Brunner Mine disaster happened at 9:30 am on Thursday 26 March 1896, when an explosion deep in the Brunner Mine, in the West Coast region of New Zealand, killed all 65 miners below ground. The Brunner Mine disaster is the deadliest mining disaster in New Zealand's history.
One of the deceased miners being recovered from the mine
The mass burial of Brunner Mine disaster victims at the Stillwater cemetery
The mass grave site in March 2021
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities.
Senghenydd pit, UK 1913.
The Farmington coal mine disaster kills 78. West Virginia, US 1968.
A memorial to the men killed in the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse.
Breaking the News, painted by Australian artist John Longstaff in 1887, depicts a miner informing a widow of her husband's death in a mining accident.
