Pit rescue

at Lofthouse Colliery THE MINERS' union may call for changes in regulations which control mining near abandoned colleries because of the Lofthouse pit disaster.

Arthur Scargill, area secretary of the NUM, told me yesterday: "There are a number of disturbing features about this disaster which must be avoided in the future.

'There are many other pits in the same situation as this one but no one knew about these things until this happened here.

'We will be making a full statement when the facts are fully known. Our own mining engineers have been investigating all aspects of this disaster for this purpose' The statement from • Mr Scargill-made minutes before he went underground to join the final stages of the rescue operation—-was the first public sign of concern from the union over the circumstances surrounding the disaster.

Up until now they have said little or nothing, leaving explanations to NCB officials. But as the shock of the disaster wears off miners at Lotthouse are beginning to ask why the NCB was "stealing' coal so dangerously near to old workings.

Because it is now clear that - There's been FOR GO rdon Brady, Lofthouse pi t disaster was a personal blow. One of the missing men, Colin Barnaby, was close 'He was a nice lad—not a lad really, a man. We were drinking mates.' Gordon, who has worked underground at Lofthouse since 1968, was at home when he heard the news of the disaster. I ran out to the wife in the garden, "There's been a disaster at our pit", I said and we went in the house to listen to the news.

'I didn't know what to say. I was upset and tears coming into my eyes when I knew.

I thought, "What must relatives be feeling"?

Gordon told me about a disaster' the board decision to mine in an area of inadequately mapped old workings was the main cause of the disaster.

Experts now say privately that the flooding seems to have occurred when the 'pillar' of coal round a disused shaft collapsed into flooded 19th century workings. Water was displaced and the massive increase in pressure burst open the S9B face on the Flockton seam where miners were working on Wednesday morning.

The NCB say they were mining well below the old workings. But this has proved incorrect.

One of the five shafts which have now appeared on the surface near Lofthouse goes well below the Flockton seam, which is 750 feet below ground. Normally test drillings are made when a face approaches old workings but this did not occur on S9B.

One miner who would not be named summed up the feeling yesterday.

"They tried to hide the truth from the men about low earnings by getting wages boosted by high productivity and overtime.

'You drive out the faceno one really cares where it is going so long as the coal is fetched up. Then something like this happens.

'But it's too late to get the facts now. The horse has already bolted.' • Miners and families at the pithead silently watched yesterday premier Heath, flanked by police and security men, visited the colliery. He spoke to officials and relatives before leaving in an RAF jet.

conditions at Lofthouse. 'Some of the faces are awful. There's one face over by the old Ardsley pit-that pit's waterlogged to. And they're working the other side of the Flockton seam near to it.

"The worst face I've been on is the Beeston. It's very rough.

They've hit a fault and the roads to the face are steep and the ceiling is low in some places.

'Lofthouse is a dry pit. This means there's a lot of dust.

On the Beeston it's very hot and so dusty you can hardly breath. You sweat buckets at the tailgate.

'I don't think we get enough money at all. We should get what we do now just as danger money. You can understand why the miners went on strike last year when you see things like this.' IN A tersely-worded statement-and after two days of talks - the Provisional Sinn Fein yesterday categorically The utterly Bonapartist nature of the new constitutional proposals was, paradoxically, revealed by Capt John Brook, Unionist Chief Whip, who ex-