Part of the summary from the official Inquiry Report for “Blantyre Colliery Explosion” of 1877. Transcribed by myself word for word for the first time appearing online, this particular detailed section summarises the contributing causes of the disaster:
CONTRIBUTING CAUSES
Some, if not all of the following causes would have had effect in leading to the explosion.
- The mine had been opened out very rapidly. One of the oversmen stated that he never saw a colliery so rapidly opened, whether non fiery or fiery. It appeared that in stoop and room-work, it is an old rule in Scotland to have each stoop formed before beginning others beyond, in order that one stoop-length only may depend upon bratticed air. Here rooms were driven in advance before the “througher” or cut through had been completed. Work as opened out as speedily as possible in every direction from both pits, the thought appearing not to have occurred that in a fiery mine the openings should be few, and, unless the surplus ventilation is great, driven slowly to allow the gas time to get vent.
- The excessive bratticing consequent upon the large number of places being worked, and the additional lengths consequent upon the rooms not being cut through as described. The bratticing seems to have been well attended to, but it is scarcely within human power to keep a pit safe and clear of gas with more than a mile and a quarter of bratticed air, without counting the north side of No.2 pit; at all events, not without a very much larger surplus ventilation than this mine afforded. The lifting of the screens or swing cloths at the entrances to the bratticing usually prevents serious obstruction to the air current in the event of bratticing getting disarranged, but every screen is some obstacle to free ventilation. Bratticing sometimes sways against the side of gets knocked down by falls of roof or coal, or by hutches. The issue of gas also in this mine was such that at some places the bratticing had to be kept up to within less than two yards of the face, one place being named where the distance was only 4 feet and so close that the coal got behind the brattice and blocked up par off the space for air.
- The fallen coal at the stooping at times hindered the air.
- Men also had on a few occasions been found with screens put up to shelter themselves from the air current. This to some extent interfered with free ventilation.
- Four planks were put across one of the three compartments into which No.3 shaft was divided, and they had remained there during the half hour immediately preceding and up to the time of the explosion. These planks went across the 8 feet width of the shaft, each plank being 11 inches in width making an area of 26 feet 8 inches, to which extent they blocked the entrance for air. There was still, however an area of 165 square feet left. The ingress, therefore, for the quantity of air which had to pass was not materially restricted. Some decrease in quantity would, however be occasioned. The restriction being at the entrance would also increase the suck or pull of the furnace upon the mine, and thereby cause more firedamp than usual be drawn out of the coal and from the accumulated gas at the Stoopings, and this simultaneously with a diminished quantity of air for its dilution. In a mine, with the ventilation closely verging on the explosive point, this may have turned the balance.
- On the night preceding the explosion, the night cubeman or furnace tenter began to work at 6 o’clock. He fired as hard as he could until a quarter to 5am, when leaving good fires with plenty of coal on, he went up the shaft, without having noticed anything out of the ordinary course. The day cubeman came down a little before 6am on the morning of the explosion. He found the fires with coal built up in front, and small coal thrown inside as usual. He got the fires into more active operation. At 7.15 o’clock he began cleaning one fire, and having finished that, he was in the act of cleaning the other, when the explosion occurred. In cleaning the fires, he first pushed the fire far back, throwing on a little fresh coal to keep it in. He then cleaned the bars, and having filled up with fresh coal, got that fire again into active operation. He had cleaned the bars, with the fire put back at the other furnace, and was putting on coal for the second firing, when he was blown away from the fire, the two trap door being also blown away from between the furnace and No.2 shaft. One of the fires was thus, at the time of the explosion, not in full operation.
