‘We have not known such horror for a generation’

TRAGEDY struck a Welsh mining community as all four of the miners trapped underground in a flooded pit were found to have perished.

Families of the victims, gathered in a nearby community centre, were left devastated as their hopes of receiving good news were dashed, after rescue crews found one body after another.

A full investigation into Thursday morning’s accident at Gleision Colliery, near Swansea, was promised by the Welsh Secretary as the community struggled to come to terms with the loss of life.

Prime Minister David Cameron said it was “a desperately, desperately sad situation”. Neath MP Peter Hain said the deaths of the four miners was a “stab through the heart” of the tight-knit community, and he paid tribute to the “super-human efforts” of rescue workers.

The four men – Phillip Hill, Charles Breslin, David Powell and Garry Jenkins – were trapped when the mine flooded. Three others suffered injuries but managed to escape.

Early yesterday morning, police announced the tragic news that rescuers had located the body of one of the group.

At 1:30pm, it was revealed a second body had been found, followed shortly after 3pm by the grim news that a third man had been discovered dead.

Finally, at just after 6pm, the last flicker of hope was extinguished when rescuers delivered the crushing news that a fourth body had been found, leaving the families bereft. The bodies have yet to be formally identified. Ambulances were seen approaching the entrance to the mine during the day.

One of those trapped was the father of one of the three miners who managed to escape from the drift mine when it flooded.

It had previously been hoped the four might have found refuge in an underground air pocket, giving them enough oxygen to survive until rescue workers could reach them.

But without any means of communicating with the men, it was impossible to tell what injuries they might have sustained when slurry-filled flood water engulfed the drift mine.

Families of those underground waited for news in the nearby community centre in Rhos, but when the news came it was not good.

South Wales chief constable Peter Vaughan said the conclusion of the rescue was “the one that none of us wanted”.

Chris Margetts, from South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, said water and oxygen levels in the mine had been good and that they had used seismic listening devices in their attempts to find the miners. But he said it had been a slow process to search the “myriad” of tunnels.

The alarm was raised at about 9:20am on Thursday after Mr Hill, 45, from Neath, and Mr Breslin, 62, Mr Powell, 50, and Mr Jenkins, 39, all from the Swansea Valley, became trapped.

The men were stranded in a tunnel 295ft (90m) underground after a retaining wall holding back a body of water failed, flooding the shaft.

Of the three who escaped, one was in hospital after swimming through flood water to the mine entrance, then struggling to the pit to raise the alarm. The two others emerged largely unharmed and were helping the rescue operation yesterday.

Mr Hain said the men’s families had gone through “hell”.

“This is a community which has a mining history that goes back generations,” he said.

“There is an inbred support for miners in this kind of predicament and their families. Everybody is rallying around but everybody is traumatised because they’ve not known this horror for a generation or more.”

The National Union of Mineworkers has expressed concerns about safety standards at small privately run pits like that at Gleision, saying they were not subject to the same checks and regulation as large scale mines.

Chris Kitchen, general secretary of the NUM, said: “We have grave concerns about safety standards in these kinds of mines. We fear that safety is often set at minimum standards so that costs can be kept down. They are not generally unionised or easily visited by inspectors.”

Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan promised there would be a “full investigation” into the accident.

She met families waiting for news at the community centre and said :“This is a distressing day for all involved,” she said. “This tragedy has touched everyone in what is a very tight-knit community. Having just met the families, I know they take great comfort in the messages of support they have received from not only the UK but across the world.

“I have assured the families that across government we have worked to ensure that the rescue services have all the support they need.”

Prime Minister David Cameron kept in touch with the rescue effort throughout the day and said the outcome was: “desperately desperately sad.”

“It is clear the emergency services have done everything they can and worked incredibly hard,” Mr Cameron said.

“They haven’t lacked for anything, but it is obviously a desperately, desperately sad situation for everyone concerned.

“The anguish of the families obviously is intense, worrying about their loved ones and the news is not good at all. There is going to be desperate sorrow in those families and communities as they come to terms with the loss.”

Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones said the sympathies of the world were with the bereaved families and the people of Wales.

“The people of Wales, and indeed people across the world, stand together in solidarity with the families through this terrible tragedy.

He thanked the rescuers, the divers and the mining experts who had worked tirelessly to do everything they could to try to bring about a rescue, saying: "All that was humanly possible was done,"

"We thought in south Wales that the days of mining accidents were behind us, but we were wrong,"

The community where the desperate rescue attempt was carried out was already reeling from the tragic death of five-year-old Harry Patterson on Tuesday.

The boy, who lived within walking distance of the pit in the nearby village of Alltwen, died after apparently releasing the handbrake on the family’s Seat car, which was parked in the driveway of his home.

The worst mining accident in Britain was in 1913, when 439 miners died in a gas explosion at the Senghenydd colliery in South Wales. In 1966, an avalanche of coal sludge buried a school in the village of Aberfan, killing 116 children and 28 adults.

Seven people have been killed in mining accidents in Britain since 2006, according to Health and Safety Executive statistics.