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    BLM - GROUP 8 - Honkeiko Colliery Mining Disaster

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    Saurabh Kumar
    The Honkeiko colliery mining disaster in 1942 killed 1,549 Chinese miners at a coal mine in Benxi, China. The mine was operated by the Japanese, who forced Chinese laborers to work in poor conditions without safety standards. On April 26th, a gas and coal dust explosion occurred in the mine, sending flames from the shaft entrance. The Japanese mine operators shut down the only exit, trapping workers inside to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was one of the worst mining disasters in history due to the negligence of the Japanese operators.

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    BLM - GROUP 8 - Honkeiko Colliery Mining Disaster

    Uploaded by

    Saurabh Kumar
    56 views11 pages
    The Honkeiko colliery mining disaster in 1942 killed 1,549 Chinese miners at a coal mine in Benxi, China. The mine was operated by the Japanese, who forced Chinese laborers to work in poor conditions without safety standards. On April 26th, a gas and coal dust explosion occurred in the mine, sending flames from the shaft entrance. The Japanese mine operators shut down the only exit, trapping workers inside to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was one of the worst mining disasters in history due to the negligence of the Japanese operators.

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    BLM_GROUP 8_Honkeiko Colliery Mining Disaster

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    The Honkeiko colliery mining disaster in 1942 killed 1,549 Chinese miners at a coal mine in Benxi, China. The mine was operated by the Japanese, who forced Chinese laborers to work in poor conditions without safety standards. On April 26th, a gas and coal dust explosion occurred in the mine, sending flames from the shaft entrance. The Japanese mine operators shut down the only exit, trapping workers inside to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was one of the worst mining disasters in history due to the negligence of the Japanese operators.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    56 views11 pages

    BLM - GROUP 8 - Honkeiko Colliery Mining Disaster

    Uploaded by

    Saurabh Kumar
    The Honkeiko colliery mining disaster in 1942 killed 1,549 Chinese miners at a coal mine in Benxi, China. The mine was operated by the Japanese, who forced Chinese laborers to work in poor conditions without safety standards. On April 26th, a gas and coal dust explosion occurred in the mine, sending flames from the shaft entrance. The Japanese mine operators shut down the only exit, trapping workers inside to die from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was one of the worst mining disasters in history due to the negligence of the Japanese operators.

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    Honkeiko Colliery

    Mining Disaster
    Saurabh Kumar 19BM63008 GROUP - 8
    Sankalp Srivastava 19BM63018
    Rahul Ganesh 19BM63026
    Karthik Dasari 19BM63060
    Ankit Mirajkar 19BM63062
    Overview
    • Honkeiko colliery mining disaster, deadly explosion that occurred on April 26, 1942, in
    a coal mine at Benxi, Liaoning Province in China.
    • The disaster killed 1,549 Chinese miners.
    • The colliery was part of a coal and iron operation established there in the early 20th
    century as a joint Chinese-Japanese enterprise that gradually came under the complete
    control of the Japanese.
    • Japanese invaded the Liaoning area in the 1930s, and during the Sino-Japanese War
    (1937–45) they forced Chinese laborers—some of whom had been captured from local
    military organizations—to work in the mines.
    • Diseases such as typhoid and cholera flourished in the camp.
    Overview
    • On April 26, 1942, a gas and coal-dust explosion in the mine sent flames bursting from the
    mine shaft entrance.
    • A dust explosion is the rapid combustion of fine particles suspended in the air within an
    enclosed location.
    • Dust explosions can occur where any dispersed powdered combustible material is present in
    high-enough concentrations in the atmosphere or other oxidizing gaseous medium, such
    as pure oxygen. In cases when fuel plays the role of a combustible material, the explosion is
    known as a fuel-air explosion.
    • Due to the raging 2nd world war and lack of initial publicity, no one learned about the
    incident in the immediate aftermath
    • The flimsy shoes issued by the mine lasted less than one week.
    Possible Causes
    • Working conditions were poor as there were no safety standards and the working condition
    of labours was pathetic
    • One day, a fire broke out in one of the mine-shafts due to mixing of gas and coal dust. The
    fire became worse due to the enclosed area of the shaft and presence of particulate matter
    inside
    • To prevent the fire from spreading, the Japanese mine operators shut down the shaft and
    locked away the only means to get out of the shaft, thereby leaving the people inside to die
    • The resulting carbon monoxide poisoning led to the death of 1,549 people
    • The Japanese mine operators set up an electrical fence around the mine to prevent the
    relatives of the mine workers from entering and re-opening the shaft
    • The Soviet Union later investigated and blamed the actions of the Japanese for needlessly
    increasing the death toll
    Govt Rules and Labor Legislations violations

    • Laborers rights were violated by Japanese, as they had forced all the laborers to work without health
    inspection. The mine worker people are poor so they can’t afford expensive medical treatment and their
    isolated location and poverty denied them access to health care and the diseases often proved fatal.

    • Safety regulations should had been practised at the place for all the laborers which also required
    removal of accumulated coal dust and the use of crushed limestone or "rock dust" to neutralize the
    combustibility of fine particles of coal that naturally cling to mine equipment, floors, pillars and roofs.

    • There should have also been provisions like setting up standards to reduce dust and the Black Lung
    Disability Trust Fund (BLDTF), which pays health benefits to coal miners afflicted with black lung. As it
    is said that a miner who spent 25 years in underground coal mines has a 5-10% risk of contracting the
    disease.
    Govt Rule and Labor Legislations violations

    • After proper investigation of the coal mining site, plans had to be implemented that would require
    underground mines to do more to control explosive coal dust under an emergency rule. For this they
    needed to do periodic inspections of mines to keep vigil over the status of safety and investigate into
    accidents and complaints

    • An another human right violation was that though a tremendous effort was devoted to kill the fire by
    cutting off the ventilation and sealing the mine, but that method left many surviving workers inside to
    suffocate to death.
    Role of Administration
    Risk involves the occurrence or potential occurrence of some accidents consisting of an event or
    sequence of events. The risk assessment study covers the following:
    • Identification of potential hazard areas;
    • Identification of representative failure cases;
    • Visualization of the resulting scenarios in terms of fire and explosion;
    • Assess the overall damage potential of the identified hazardous events and the impact zones from
    the accidental scenarios;
    • Assess the overall suitability of the site from hazard minimization and disaster mitigation point of
    view;
    • Furnish specific recommendations on the minimization of the worst accident possibilities; and
    • Preparation of broad DMP, On-site and Off-site Emergency Plan, which includes Occupational
    Health and Safety Plan.
    Role of Administration
    The complete mining will be carried out under the management control and direction of a
    qualified mine manager holding a first class manager’s certificate of competency.

    The duty to prepare the off-site plan lies with the local authorities. The EPO (Emergency
    Planning Officer) appointed should carry out his duty in preparing for a whole range of different
    emergencies within the local authority area. The EPO should liaise with the works, to obtain the
    information to provide the basis for the plan.

    This liaison should ensure that the plan is continually kept up to date. It will be the responsibility
    of the EPO to ensure that all those organizations which will be involved off site in handling the
    emergency, know of their role and are able to accept it by having for example, sufficient staff and
    appropriate equipment to cover their particular responsibilities.
    How could these violations had been avoided?

    Instead of forcing all the laborers to There should had been:


    work in the mining, there should had 1. Inspection of mines.
    been an enforcement agency which 2. Investigation into –
    ensures compliance of the stated 1. accidents
    provisions through inspections by 2. dangerous occurrences – emergency response
    inspecting officers. 3. complaints & other matters
    3. Promoting – -
    The health, safety and welfare 1. Safety education and awareness programmes
    provisions of Mines Act and Rules are 2. Workers’ participation in safety management through
    invariably checked during the course Workmen’s inspector
    of general inspection of the mines. 3. Safety committee
    Aftermath of the disaster
    • It took workers ten days to remove all the corpses and rubble from the shaft.
    • The dead were buried in a mass grave nearby. Many victims could not be properly identified
    due to the extent of the burns.
    • The Japanese at first reported the death toll to be 34
    • Initial newspaper reports were short, as few as 40 words, and downplayed the scale of the
    disaster, characterizing it as a minor event.
    • Later the Japanese erected a monument to the dead. This stone gave the number of dead as
    1,327 but The true number is believed to be 1,549 i.e 34% of the miners working that day
    • During the investigation done by the Soviet Union it was found that only some of the workers
    died directly from the gas and coal-dust explosion
    • Most deaths were from carbon monoxide poisoning produced when the Japanese closed the
    ventilation and sealed the pit head after the initial explosion
    Thanks !

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