Hlobane Coal Mine Disaster (1983)

The inquest found that several regulations of the Mines and Works Act had been ignored, with a lawyer for the deceased highlighting twenty-one ignored regulations.^[1] The mines ventilation officer, P. Shand, acknowledged that the mine faces were not ventilated by sufficient amounts of air as stipulated by regulations and even months after the event, were still not being met.^[1] He would claim this was the case with most coal mines in Natal.^[1] Like the 1944 explosion, the miners were mining through a dyke and special precautions should have been taken due to a methane build-up.^[1]

Only fourteen of twenty-nine pieces of machinery had been "fireproofed" to prevent accidental sparks.^[1] The inquest court believed that a coal scoop was probably the cause of the ignition and explosion.^[1]

A build-up in methane had been noticed by miner T.J. Bezuidenhout a week prior to the explosion and he had spent most of his shift getting rid of it.^[1] He reported the occurrence to his supervisors and his report was annotated by them to the effect that he had made up the methane report to cover-up poor production.^[1] He would die in the explosion the following week. Not enough safety lamps used to trace methane were issued and were insufficiently supplied with tubes to capture the methane for testing.^[1] Subsequent deaths after the methane explosion were caused by coal dust igniting that had not been watered down due to insufficient water supply and the non-fireproof brattice cloth.^[1]

In December 1983, the South African Chamber of Mines agreed to allow the National Union of Mineworkers to be represented on its Prevention of Accidents Committee.^[1]