1923 Bellbird Mining Disaster
mining disaster in New South Wales, Australia
The 1923 Bellbird Mining Disaster took place on 1 September 1923 when there was a fire at Hetton-Bellbird coal mine, known locally as the Bellbird Colliery or mine. The coal mine was located near the village of Bellbird, which is itself three miles southwest of Cessnock in the Northern coalfields of New South Wales, Australia. The accident occurred in the No. 1 Workings of the mine and resulted in the deaths of 21 miners and their horses. At the time of the disaster the mine employed 538 people including 369 who worked underground.
The disaster prompted a thorough investigation into the causes of the accident, which resulted in legislative changes that were implemented in an effort to improve worker safety in Australian coal mines. These efforts culminated with the Mines Rescue Act 1925 which established standards for mine rescue operations in New South Wales.
Background
The Bellbird Colliery was owned by the Hetton Coal Company. Two initial tunnels were constructed in 1908 and were referred to as No. 1 Mine.
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This entry incorporates text from “1923 Bellbird Mining Disaster” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.