ZB ZB
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

Strongman disaster remembered fifty years on

Author
Chelsea Daniels,
Publish Date
Thu, 19 Jan 2017, 6:35AM
Accompanied by a clergyman, mourners leave the mass grave of the 19 miners killed in the Strongman Mine disaster on January 19, 1967 (New Zealand Herald archive)
Accompanied by a clergyman, mourners leave the mass grave of the 19 miners killed in the Strongman Mine disaster on January 19, 1967 (New Zealand Herald archive)

Strongman disaster remembered fifty years on

Author
Chelsea Daniels,
Publish Date
Thu, 19 Jan 2017, 6:35AM

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Strongman Mine Disaster, an explosion that claimed the lives of nineteen men in 1967.

The men were killed when an explosion ripped through a section of the coal mine, which was just north of Greymouth. 

More than 200 relatives, including five of the six remaining widows and their children, have registered for the commemorations.

This morning they'll visit the mass grave site in the Karoro Lawn Cemetery.

On Saturday they'll journey together for the last time to the mine site in the Nine Mile Valley.

Strongman Mine historian and author Peter Ewen said it will be a significant event.

"No-one's going to be around for the 100th anniversary so I think this is the last chance we'll have, participants to the tragedy, will have to get together and reminisce."

Ewen said the poor weather forecast for the day is ironic, as "50 years it was horrendous too."

"It might be all part of the plan from those above to remember the day in question when the funeral took place."

 

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you