TOWN MARKS MINE CATASTROPHE
A CENTURY ON, MT MULLIGAN TO REMEMBER 75 DEAD MINERS
ONE hundred years ago on Sunday one of the nation’s worst coal mine disasters obliterated the population and devastated a tight-knit new mining settlement west of Cairns.
At 9.34am on September 19, 1921, a series of deafening explosions heard up to 30km away tore through a network of underground passages before exiting the pit head to blast equipment 15m from their foundations.
Seventy-five workers were killed.
The whole area was blackened by coal dust, scrub fires ignited by burning projectiles dotted the landscape.
On Sunday a memorial service expected to be attended by hundreds will be held at the site of the disaster.
Penny Murphy from Albury, New South Wales, is locked down by the pandemic but will tune in to a livestream of the service to remember her great grandfather, William Robert Smithson, killed in the explosion.
“My great grandmother was pregnant at the time and lost the baby not long after the disaster happened,” she said.
“My grandmother was around 10-years-old; you can imagine how hard it would have been for my great grandmother, Priscilla, waiting at the mine face for a body, and it was five months until the last body was recovered from the mine.”
Priscilla and her four children relocated to Collinsville after the explosion where her brother was killed in a second coal mine blast.
“To survive, she bought a boarding house to provide accommodation for the miners in Collinsville,” she said.
An influenza outbreak and poisonous gases hampered rescue efforts as ambulances and doctors arrived in the aftermath but no one came out alive, except sole survivor Tom Evans who died in Mareeba Hospital on September 26, 1921.
Compelled by a deep connection to the area Cairns history buff Fred Morris has been the driving force behind uniting descendants of the lost miners.
“For me I didn’t have family at Mt Mulligan and I did not have anyone killed at the mine. But when I was 12, I first visited and from that young age I fell in love with the mountain,” he said.
“I am right into saving all those memories, there is the feeling that comes from within me.”
Most people employed in the aftermath took on roles as gravediggers but later the use of explosives to construct graves further traumatised grieving families struggling with the loss of the miners.
Cairns Deputy Mayor Terry James lost his great uncle in the blast, and when the mine reopened 30 years later his grandfather descended into the pit and later died at 45 of black lung disease.
“It would have been very tough,” he said.
En route to the memorial on Friday Cr James said it was
important to remember the loss of pioneering men that broke their backs before being killed in horrendously dangerous and cramped underground conditions.
“The families of those 75 men were the pioneers of Cairns that came from the Hodgkinson goldfield; they were there at the very beginning,” he said.
“(At the service) there is going to be a lot to people there that have never met but are related.
“I am hoping to learn a lot more from long lost relatives that will be at the memorial.”
Four days after the explosion a royal commission was appointed to make inquiries.
It found a coal-dust explosion at Fitzpatrick’s machine wall was the most likely cause of the explosion.
New coal-mining legislation was introduced in 1925 and a Safety in Mines Testing and Research Station (SIMTARS) was finally established in 1986, 65 years after being recommended by the Mt Mulligan royal commission.
Queensland Resources Minister Scott Stewart will be at the memorial on Sunday to make a speech and present ceremonial wreaths.
“It’s an incredibly important event and even more so because of the tragic incident at the Gregory Crinum mine on Tuesday night,” he said.
“Everyone has a role to play in keeping our resources workers safe. It will be an honour to speak at this important event honouring those resources workers who have tragically lost their lives.”
For those that are unable to attend in person the service will be livestreamed on the Resources Safety and Health Queensland’s Facebook page.