Beaconsfield Mine collapse

Location of Beaconsfield

The Beaconsfield mine collapse occurred on April 25 2006 in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia. Of the 17 people who were in the mine at the time, 14 escaped immediately following the collapse, one was killed, and the remaining two were found alive after five days nearly a kilometre below the surface. These two miners were freed on Tuesday May 9, a full two weeks after being trapped.

Mine collapse

At 9:26 pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time) on April 25 2006, a suspected seismic event triggered an underground rock fall at the Beaconsfield gold mine in northern Tasmania. Geoscience Australia said that the earthquake had a magnitude of 2.2, at a shallow depth at coordinates 41.190°S 146.840°E / -41.190; 146.840. Earlier speculation had suggested that mine blasting had caused the collapse. Three of the miners working underground at the time were trapped, and early reports suggested that 14 miners who were underground at the time had managed to scramble to safety. The mining company, Beaconsfield Gold Mine Joint Venture, relesed a press statement saying they held "grave concerns for [the three miners] wellbeing".

Larry Knight (44), Brant Webb (37) and Todd Russell (34), were the three miners who remained unaccounted for. Knight had apparently been killed in the initial rockfall, but Webb and Russell were still alive, trapped in part of the vehicle in which they had been working at the time of the collapse, known as a teleloader or telehandler. They were in a basket at the end of the telehandler's arm, where they had been applying steel mesh to the walls of the tunnel, ironically in order to prevent rockfalls. It was initially misreported that the two miners were saved by a slab of rock that fell on top of the basket, however in a Channel 9 exclusive interview broadcast on May 21 Webb and Russell stated that this was incorrect and that the "ceiling" above them was merely thousands of individual unstable rocks precariously packed together.

Beaconsfield mine

The cage was partially filled with rock, and the men were partially buried under some rubble. Webb seemed to have been knocked unconscious for a short time, and Russell's lower body was completely buried. When Webb awoke, the two were able to free themselves and each other from the fallen rock by cutting through their clothes and boots, which were stuck in the rock, using stanley knives.

The miners were able to survive by drinking groundwater, seeping through the rock overhead, which they had collected in their helmets. Webb also had a muesli bar with him, which he offered to cut in half and share with Russell. The men initially agreed to wait 24 hours to eat it, but they continually extended the time, until they decided to eat it on April 29. They then ate small pieces of the bar at a time, to make it last as long as possible. However, Russell later lost a large portion of his half of the bar when it fell out of his pocket.

Rescue effort

On April 26 a remote-controlled earth mover began clearing the rock underground. On the morning of April 27, at 7:22am, the body of one of the miners was found in the shaft. At around 8pm, the body was retrieved and was identified as the body of Larry Paul Knight, 44, of Launceston. He was the driver of the telehandler.

Rescue workers did not proceed further through the rubble past the back end of the telehandler because it was unsafe, instead choosing to blast a new tunnel across from the main shaft to the side shaft, aiming to come out in front of the telehandler. On April 29, they began blasting a new tunnel, detonating at least six large explosive charges to form the tunnel. The blasts dislodged rock inside the cage of the telehandler, which Webb and Russell attempted to clear, although as the blasts came closer, rock was dislodged faster than they could clear it. Russell recorded the date and time of each blast on his clothing, so that if they died as a result of the blasting, the rescuers would know that they had been alive prior to a particular blast. Both Webb and Russell also wrote letters to their families on their clothing. The two men sung The Gambler by Kenny Rogers (the only song they both knew) in order to keep up their spirits, as they waited for successive blasts to occur in the tunnel. At one point they could hear rescuers talking, and shouted at them to be quiet so that their singing would not be interrupted.

At 5:45 pm on April 30 2006, Webb and Russell were found alive after being trapped underground for five days, being detected by thermal imaging cameras and a microphone. One miner found a direct route to the trapped miners, across the rubble in the side shaft, and was able to get close enough to the basket of the telehandler to shake Russell's hand. This was where a remote-controlled loader had got to the back of the teleloader, but this route was deemed unsafe for rescuing them. Webb and Russell themselves did not want the rescuers to attempt to reach them through the rubble, because to do so would require them to cut through the wire on the side of the cage, which was under considerable tension from the pressure of the rock above. The two men were afraid that cutting the cage would cause it to collapse.

Rescuers immediately halted blasting in the access tunnel, and instead drilled a smaller hole through the approximately 14.5 metres of rock between the head of the access tunnel and the part of the side shaft where the miners were trapped. Webb and Russell directed the work by listening to the sound of the drilling and judging the direction. The hole was about 90 millimetres in diameter. A PVC pipe was used to line the hole, which was used to deliver fresh water, food and communications equipment to the men.

On May 1 2006 rescuers were still 12 metres from the miners. They were also later sent a digital camera, a torch, dry clothes, magazines, iPods including music from the Foo Fighters, deodorant and toothpaste. They also received letters from their families, and were able to write letters in return. In one letter to his wife, Russell wrote "It's not much of a room we have up here." Russell asked for the previous Saturday's newspaper because he said he would be looking for a new job, after joking about losing his current one for lazing about. One mine official questioned why Russell would want to look for a job, since he already had one, Russell in a later interview saying that he had replied, "I told him to stick it up his..." They were also sent medical supplies, with which Webb was able to treat the injuries to Russell's leg, with advice from paramedics. It was also on May 1 that the two men also asked about Larry Knight, and rescuers told them that he had been found dead.

The rescue effort by drilling was put off on Monday 1 May because of the danger of another collapse. It was decided to use a raise borer anchored in concrete, with the last load of the concrete being delivered before dawn on Wednesday, May 3 2006. The machine cut a horizontal tunnel one metre wide. Later that day it was announced that the drilling to go the final 12 metres would commence within hours.. At about 6:45pm, drilling of a 20cm pilot hole for the raise borer commenced. Using the normal procedure for this machinery, a pilot hole was drilled, for the larger diameter borer to follow. This took more than three days to complete. According to Beaconsfield mine manager Matthew Gill, the quartz rock which was drilled through was 5 times harder than concrete. The drill was capable of drilling through it at 1 metre per hour, but it was going much more slowly because of the danger of further rock falls, at a rate of around 460 millimetres per hour.

Low-impact explosives were inserted into approximately 50 small holes that were drilled into the last section of rock. Drilling of the rescue tunnel commenced on Thursday 4 May at about 8:00pm guided by the completed pilot hole. It was gouged out to one metre and was planned to come up underneath the men's cage after passing through 16 metres of rock.. The last phase was to involve a miner using hand tools to create an opening whilst lying on his back.

As at 7:00 am on Saturday May 6, the raise borer had drilled about 11 metres of the 14.5 metre rescue tunnel. The mine decided on the shortened route late on Friday night. The major drilling operation was completed by 6:00pm on Saturday, with only a few metres remaining to reach the trapped miners. Several hours work dismantling and removing the boring machine from the escape tunnel were required before the final phase of the rescue commenced.

On May 7, the rescuers reached a belt of hard rock that they found hard to penetrate. As the diamond-edged chainsaws they were using had little effect, they reverted to using low-impact charges. On May 8 the horizontal tunnel was completed, with rescuers beginning tunnelling upwards in the short vertical tunnel, since the horizontal tunnel had been dug lower than the level of the miners. At about 9:30pm a probe passed through the rock below where the miners were located, which indicated there was only a metre between them, including 400 millimetres of hard rock.

After 14 nights, at 4:27 am, rescuers, namely Glenn Burns, Donovan Lightfoot and Royce Gill, finally reached the men, one of them yelling "I can see your light" when he broke through the ground which was separating him from the miners, to which the miners replied "I can see your light too". Brant Webb was freed at 4:47am on May 9, followed by Todd Russell at 4:54 am. They were driven up the spiral shaft of the mine, arriving at a medical station at the base of the vertical shaft from the surface at about 5:30 am. They were checked by a doctor, and then sent up the lift towards the surface. About thirty metres from the surface, they got out of their wheelchairs, which were moved to the rear of the lift so as to be out of sight. At 5:58 am both men walked out of the lift cage unaided "...punching their fists in the air to the cheers of the Beaconsfield crowds who had gathered outside the mine gate. Wearing their fluoro jackets and lit miner's helmets, the men switched their safety tags to 'safe' on the mine out board before embracing family members who rushed to hug them." Both were then transported to Launceston General Hospital in nearby Launceston just after 6:00 am local time. Russell had an injured knee, and a damaged vertebra which put pressure on his sciatic nerve, while Webb had injuries to both knees, several vertebra and his neck.

Reaction

Hundreds of journalists arrived in the town to cover the story, causing inconvenience for locals.

Australian Opposition Leader Kim Beazley, at a May Day march in Brisbane, associated the mining accident with the government's new industrial relations legislation, after which Kevin Andrews called for him to apologise for politicising the incident. Australian Prime Minister, John Howard said his message to the miners would be "Everybody is with you, mate".

On the afternoon of May 7, prominent Australian journalist Richard Carleton suffered a heart attack at a press conference while at the mine. He was transported to hospital, before being pronounced dead immediately by a doctor.

Less than six hours after they were rescued, Todd Russell joined more than a thousand mourners at Larry Knight's funeral. The funeral had been postponed constantly in the hope that both rescued miners could attend, before finally settling on Tuesday May 9 at 1:00pm. Russell attended after being discharged from Launceston General Hospital in time.

When Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters heard of the miners' request to have the band's music sent down on mp3 players, he issued a personal message via fax to them indicating he would meet them for a beer.

Following a meeting the Australian Workers Union held with the miners from Beaconsfield on May 15 they reported that no miner could be found who had been given workplace safety training, miners were unhappy with reductions in the amount of cement used to close in exploited parts of the mine, supports had been removed from lower parts of the mine and mesh intended to prevent rock collapse was known to be ineffective.

Chequebook journalism

Interest in gaining media deals with both survivors is increasing with Oprah Winfrey's production company Harpo expressing interest. Interest from the United States was particularly strong given two January 2006 mining disasters in West Virginia (see: Sago Mine disaster and Aracoma Alma Mine accident) which resulted in the deaths of 15 miners.

Ten News reported that the survivors were offered $3.0 million each, and Channel Nine boss Eddie McGuire attended the pub where the residents of Beaconsfield were celebrating the rescue. During The Footy Show, they crossed live to a special event held in Beaconsfield where both miners appeared and were questioned by McGuire. The Daily Telegraph revealed that the Nine Network secured a deal for $2.6 million, for a 2-hour special on the night of Sunday May 21 entitled "The Great Escape". News reports said the miners told Kim Beazley (who visited them) some details about their ordeal, but they were kept "private", disguising the real reason behind the secrecy.

The value of the story has been reduced by the continued stream of media reports detailing the ordeal, such as Enough Rope with Andrew Denton's interview with one of the rescuers Paul Featherstone.

The Film, Book and Documentary

The possible eventuation of a film based on the collapse is still very speculative and no official comment has been made as of yet.
Random House has pitched for the book, and it is believed HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, Penguin and Allen & Unwin have also expressed interest.

A mock up film parody poster was released Brant and Todd's Excellent Adventure (external)

External links

• "Beaconsfield Gold mine". Government of Tasmania - Mineral Resources Tasmania. Retrieved 2006-05-01.
• "Beaconsfield Gold". Beaconsfield Code N.L. Retrieved 2006-05-03.
• ""Beaconsfield: mining for heroes' gold"". The Media Report, ABC Radio National reports on media interest in the rescue and how it was handled (transcript, streaming audio and podcast available). Retrieved 2006-05-11.