The worst mining disaster in Queenslands history.
At 9:25am on Monday, 19th September 1921, the Mt Mulligan mine exploded with 75 men trapped underground.
All were lost!
Such a tragedy, against such a beautiful backdrop.
Mt Mulligan is three times as big as Ayers Rock, but nobody takes much notice of it, because it’s not one solid rock. It’s very unusual, because it is right in the middle of a gold field, and you never find coal in the middle of a gold field, but the mountain is full of coal.
The Europeans arrived, found the coal, and a town was built with about 320 people. You could only get there by train, and the only place to work for males was the mine. Fathers, uncles, husbands, sons, brothers all worked at the mine.
Every Sunday, the whole community would come together, and play a game of cricket. That Sunday it was too hot, so they decided to hold a dance in the evening. Everybody was there, and bought a pint.
That night, a young girl sang, 'The Dream of the Miners Child'.
A miner was leaving his home for his work.
And he heard his little girl scream.
He went to the side of the little girl’s bed.
Oh Daddy I’ve had such a dream.
Oh Daddy don’t go to work today.
As dreams so often come true.
Oh Daddy, my Daddy, please don’t go away.
I never could live without you.
Go down to the village and tell your dear friends.
Make sure that the bright stars do shine.
There is something that is going to happen today.
Daddy don’t go down the mine.
Daddy did go to work.
At twenty past nine, the next morning, there was a huge explosion. It was heard 40 miles away.
People knew, exactly, what it was!
Nobody could reach Mt Mulligan. People tried to call, but they couldn’t get anybody, because the whole town had rushed to the entrance of the mine. People from everywhere, stopped work, and travelled by train to help.
The children, had been lined up for parade, ready to go in to school. They heard the explosion. They would have known that their fathers, brothers, uncles, were dead.
The Underground Manager was in a little office, approximatley 100 yards inside the mine, from the entrance. The Mine Manager ventured in to the tunnel, and came out to the entrance, and said to the crowd, ‘You might just as well all go home, I hold no hope for any man’.
The Mine Manager returned to the office, where the Underground Manager was busy writing up the new CAVEL.
Every six weeks, there was a new CAVEL. The miners were only paid for the amount of coal they retrieved, and they were all allocated separate lots that were numbered. They would work in pairs or groups; and every six weeks they would draw their name, and the lot number out of a hat.
On this day, they had just started a new CAVEL. The Underground Manager knew that they would never know where each of the miners were, everyone was in a different lot. Badly injured, and going in and out of consciousness, he slowly wrote the miners names next to each lot. He was carried by Rail Ambulance, to Mareeba, and died two days later. He is now buried, at the Mareeba Cemetry.
It took one week, to remove 75 bodies from the mine. Many were unidentified. A First Nations woman, Mrs Hunt, identified the miners by the leather on their boots, as this was the last thing to burn, or the way they tied their shoelaces with copper wire, or by belt buckles.
The town had marked out a grave yard, at a town meeting, just days before. The grave yard was filled with 75 miners. Just two weeks later.
To bury the miners, they used explosives to dig the holes, as the ground was so hard. This traumatised the town again, and again.
There wereonly nine men who did not go to work that day!
A lady, who was a child at the time, said her father did not go to the mine that day. A old ex-miner took his place. He felt guilty for the rest of his life.
He said that, a week or so, before the disaster, the finches they took down to check the 'bad air', were very agitated, but the miners ignored them. No birds died that day! Also a man was found with his 14 year old son, in his arms. They found another, a few months later, who had crawled up a monkey hole, or airshaft, who died of asphyxiation.
Today, if you travel to Mt Mulligan, you will see a marker, that shows a natural phenomenon, that appeared after the disaster. On the side of the mountain, in rock formation, is the number, 21!
There is a legend about Mt Mulligan. They say the Wallaby's built Mt Mulligan as their playground. They built it rock upon rock. Then a evil spirit, called EEKO, took over the top of the mountain. Then a little grass pheasant went up and built a nest. EEKO was angry that his peace was destroyed, and set fire to the mountain top. EEKO jumped in to the lake, and said, 'Pity help anybody, who destroys my peace again'.
