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Events/Disaster · 1895

South Broken Hill silver mine airblast

Disaster, 1895-07-18, Australia.

What happened

On 18 July 1895 ground gave way after the underground manager had ordered men out of the stopes at the South Broken Hill mine. The fall created an airblast that killed eight workers, and a ninth died of his injuries the next day. The general manager had thought it almost impossible for creep to occur because the mine was so extensively timbered.1,2

Why it matters

The regulator uses it as a case study of ground failure at Broken Hill.1,2

Story cards

Around the same time

  1. San Francisco ships US$724 million of treasure in 16 years

    Eastern ports took US$462 million, England US$168 million and China US$68 million.3,4

  2. Caracoles silver is found in Bolivian territory by Chilean capital

    The boom gave a last push to Chilean silver mining but faded within about five years.5

  3. Schieffelin finds silver at Tombstone

    The NPS file says Tombstone became the largest town in Arizona Territory.6,7

  4. Leadville silver boom

    Leadville shows how fast a silver camp could outgrow a state capital.8,9

  5. Broken Hill Proprietary Company formed

    BHP grew from this mine into one of the largest mining companies in the world.2,10

  6. Antofagasta railway reaches Oruro

    The line to the Pacific cut costs of sending Bolivian ore to Europe.11,12,13

  7. Broken Hill South Mine rock fall

    The regulator uses it as a case study of ground failure at Broken Hill.2,14

  8. Broken Hill Central Mine falls of earth

    The regulator ties the deaths to creep caused by shrinkage of mullock fill.2,15

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Where next

Mines

Located inBroken HillGround failure at Broken Hill: an airblast in 1895 killed eight, and a ninth died.1

Events

ExamplesNorthparkes block cave air blastNorthparkes' 1999 airblast killed four. South Broken Hill's in 1895 killed nine.1ExamplesBroken Hill South Mine rock fallSix years later a rock fall at the same mine killed six on 24 May 1901.1

Places

Located inBroken HillSee the place where this happened: Broken Hill.1

Sources

  1. 1895 South Broken Hill Silver Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  2. Broken Hill (item Q270734), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  3. Peabody A., Early voyages to California (treasure shipped from San Francisco 1854-1869) Library of Congress (Essex Institute Historical Collections)
  4. Wikidata item Q62 (San Francisco)
  5. Los ciclos mineros del cobre y la plata (1820-1880) Memoria Chilena, Biblioteca Nacional de Chile
  6. Tombstone Historic District, National Historic Landmark nomination US National Park Service
  7. Tombstone (item Q79873), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  8. Leadville Colorado Encyclopedia
  9. Leadville (item Q286702), coordinate location P625 Wikidata
  10. History of Broken Hill Broken Hill City Council
  11. Correa Vera L., Del poder a los tratados: desarrollo y ferrocarriles en Bolivia, 1870-1904 Historia 46(2) (Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, via Redalyc)
  12. Hillman J., The Emergence of the Tin Industry in Bolivia Journal of Latin American Studies 16(2) (Cambridge University Press)
  13. Wikidata item Q35246 (Oruro)
  14. 1901 Broken Hill South Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator
  15. 1902 Broken Hill Central Mine case study (Learning from disasters) NSW Resources Regulator

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Froth flotation and tailings by Nina111955, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: South Africa: a crowd of people gathered outside The Goldfields offices in Johannesburg. 1896., Unknown (Wellcome Collection) (Public Domain Mark 1.0); Falu gruva, Lundberg, Bengt A / Europeana (CC0 1.0).