Why S9B flooded

THE LOFTHOUSE DISASTER FROM STEPHEN JOHNS at LOFTHOUSE COLLIERY LOCAL MINERS say that like Aberfan, the Lofthouse pit disaster which appears to have claimed the lives of seven miners could have been avoided.

It was the Coal Board's cavalier attitude to tip safety, they insist, that caused the deaths of 144 children and adults in the South Wales village seven years ago.

At Lofthouse ignorance of old mine workings appears to be the main factor in the tragedy.

The kind of haphazard attitude towards old tunnelling around the. Yorkshire colliery was best expressed George Hayes, deputy director of mining for North Yorkshire.

"The plans of this area, said Hayes at the pithead, 'are very unreliable. We are talking about the 1830s, there could have been Deputy mining director Hayes Deputy chief mining engineer Hollis something done in the old seams which we did not know about.' One could be forgiven for assuming that this ignorance would have led to an ultracautious policy at Lofthouse. But no, the NCB instead use their very lack of knowledge as an excuse. 'With so few facts, who could have foreseen this disaster?' they argued the day of the tragedy.

It has been admitted that the South 9B face in the Flockton seam was being driven into dangerous area. Roland Hollis, deputy chief mining engineer, commented: 'The face was in a critical position.' S9B was about a year old and approaching two old shafts in the vicinity of the pit. NCB officials make three damning admissions about this situation.

THEY ADMIT they knew of these shafts; THEY ADMIT they had old, and perhaps unreadable plans of them; and THEY ADMIT that no real effort to locate their exact whereabouts on the surface had been made.

Yet it was apparently the enormous build-up of water in the old workings around the shafts that burst through S9B on Wednesday morning and trapped seven miners working belly down on the face.

CRATERS

Soon after the disaster two craters appeared in a nearby ploughed fieldthe old shaft had collapsed. Below came the roar of water rushing into the Lofthouse workings.

Water drains into all workings through the shaft. This can be prevented by 'capping' — filling the shaft column with concrete or other materials.

One of the three old shafts near Lofthouse was capped. The other two now exposed as gaping holes in farmland three miles away, were not.

Yet the NCB say they did know their whereabouts from old plans.

As it was these two shafts appear to have provided a drainage channel connecting water from the surface and the topsoil to the tunnels below.

There are outdated and totally inadequate regulations that govern mining near th old workings.

Under the 1911 Coal Mines Act owners were required to record full plans and details of abandoned workings. But the old tunnels around Lofthouse were abandoned before this date. Records were therefore vague and did not give a clear picture of the warren of passageways underground.

One shaft had been located and capped by the NCB. The position of two others was known by the Yorkshire authoritiesbut they were not marked on the surface. Around the approximate position of these two shafts a 50-yard safety barrier had been drawn by management.

The NCB argue that the reason for this omission was the depth of S9B—about 150 yards below the bottom of the two old shafts. 'We have plans showing old workings at a different level from S9B.' . said Mr Hollis, 'but not at this depth.' VAGUE But as the NCB admit, plans are vague.

There seems to be an inconsistency. On the one hand the NCB uses the vagueness of old plans to explain their lack of knowledge of the area around Lofthouse. On the other they use the existence of old plans to justify their decision not to drill.

They seem to rely on old plans when it suits them.

"The facts', we now learn, are being 'established". But why were they not established before this disaster?

Because, says Mr Hayes, a wall of coal stood between modern mining and the tunnelling of the 1830s. This is almost the same as saying: 'We don't know anything until a wall of water engulfs our pit and traps seven miners!' EXPOSED Here really are shades of Aberfan. Geologists at the Aberfan inquiry exposed the NCB claim of ignorance.

It was possible, they said, to predict a tip slide in the village given the prevailing condition in and around the tip.

The truth is simply no one in management bothered to investigate the Aberfan tip or any other tip in South Wales properly.

Lofthouse may not be an isolated incident. There are about 7,000 old shafts in the Yorkshire area, the bulk of them in the West Pennines. There no reason to suppose that plans are any better than at Lofthouse or that S9B is the only "critical' face.

Lofthouse exposes a prevailing handed down from Rescue workers move up pumping gear the days of private ownershipcoal is to be had at all costs. What happens to tips, old workings and flood water is secondary; the primary consideration is to get the black mineral to the surface.

The seven Lofthouse men may be the latest in a long line of martyrs to profit and greed. The miner will never be safe from death, maiming or crippling EYDUR BIDOKS PERIODICAL STAA NEMSNARERS F paperbacks 28 charlotte st london w1 NOW OPEN Mondav to Thursdav 9/ Fridays (late diseases until the industry he works in is placed under control-workers' control.

This can only be won under socialism. The immediate fight to take the whole working class along this immediate road is the removal of the hated Tory government of Edward Heath.

Lofthouse Colliery tells us we must redouble our efforts to this end.

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