Lengede mine disaster

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The miracle of Lengede , the rescue, illustration by Helmuth Ellgaard (1963)

The Lengede mining disaster occurred on October 24, 1963 in the Lengede municipality in the Lengede-Broistedt iron ore mine belonging to the Ilseder Hütte .

Of 129 miners on the midday shift who were underground at the time of the mining disaster , 29 died.

The rescue of eleven trapped miners after 14 days, which was hardly considered possible, went down in history as a miracle of Lengede .

procedure

The misfortune and the first hours after

"Mathilde" shaft of the Lengede-Broistedt iron ore mine at the time of the accident

The accident occurred on Thursday, October 24, 1963 at around 8 p.m. when the clarification pond 12 belonging to the pit collapsed and around 475,000 cubic meters of water and sludge flowed into the Mathilde pit. The entire pit was from the 100-m- sole to 60-m level flooded .

The clarification pond 12 was set up in a removed, former open-cast mine . From there, several inclined tunnels led down to the mine building , which had been backfilled and only partially sealed before the sewage pond was put into operation .

Of the 129 men working underground , among them an electrician from an external company, 79 were able to save themselves in the first few hours. Two were able to exit via the Mathilde shaft, 41 via the material incident Osten 1, the other 36 managed to escape via the weather borehole West 14 by means of journeys set from below (ladders) and a rope ladder lowered from above by the mine rescue team. To save the remaining miners, was for the first little hope, one was saving work initiated.

Rescue of seven miners

On Friday, October 25th at 9 a.m. the first search drilling was started. It was aimed at the main brake hill near the break-in point above the 60-m level, where seven miners were suspected. At 10:10 a.m., the bore hit the route as planned and contact was established with those trapped at a depth of around 40 m . The planned rescue bores were discontinued after the lowering of the water level resulted in another escape route. In the late afternoon it was possible to rescue the miners with a raft over the incident east 1. The action ended around 7 p.m.

Already on Saturday, October 26th, the management posted a list of 39 miners who had been declared dead at the gatehouse after a fourth search bore at the southeast end of the 70 m level above the water level was unsuccessful.

A memorial service was prepared for Monday, November 4th, in the multi-purpose hall of the elementary school.

Rescue of three miners

Three tusks and their driver were at the western end of the 100 m level at Barbecke , about 2.4 km from the main shaft. The operations management hoped that the incoming water at the rising end of the route had compressed the air and thus formed a pressurized air bubble - there the miners would have a chance of survival.

The difficulty was to pierce this air bubble without the air being able to escape. The borehole therefore had to be closed with an airtight seal, a so-called preventer . Since there was a lack of experience, deep drilling engineers from an oil company from Wietze were called in .

Drilling began on Saturday, October 26th at around 7 a.m., and the breakthrough into the 79 m depth took place on Sunday at around 5:30 p.m. Strong knocking noises on the drill pipe signaled surviving miners. During the first voice connection, only the three tusks answered. The driver had made his way to the shaft some time before the accident; this increased the number of those declared dead to 40.

The three trapped miners were now provided with food and drink as well as dry clothing. The health of the men was monitored by doctors, including specialists from the Federal Institute for Air Research. The subsequent rescue drilling with a diameter of approx. 60 cm made slow progress.

On Monday, October 28th, a second rescue well was drilled in parallel with a more powerful drilling rig. The breakthrough into the track was achieved on November 1st at 4:30 a.m. without the air escaping. At 12:40 p.m., a mine fighter drove down to the trapped people to help them get into the Dahlbusch bomb (a torpedo-shaped escape capsule about 40 cm in diameter). Shortly after 1 p.m., the three rescued persons and the mine fighter were in the pressure chamber. The men had to remain in this above-borehole chamber for decompression for three hours , then they were taken to the hospital.

After another, unsuccessful search drilling, the rescue work was ended on Saturday.

Rescue of eleven miners

Memorial site of the 1963 mining disaster. Left: Search bore, 55 m depth, 58 mm inner diameter. Right: Rescue drilling, 56 m depth, 480 mm inner diameter.

The entire workforce of Revier Osten 92 was still missing. The miners hoped they had saved themselves in the Old Man - an area that arises when a mining field is cleared out and left to its own devices. It then collapses, which is why it is prohibited by the mining authorities to enter fracture fields. On the evening of November 2, during an inspection of the 60 m level, which was already accessible again, the miners urged the mine director to drill for trapped people in this fracture field. On Sunday, November 3, the search drilling started at 4 a.m., at 6:45 a.m. the drill hit a cavity at a depth of 56 m. After 10 to 15 minutes of constant knocking on the drill pipe, the first weak response signals came from below, indicating that there were survivors in the fracture cavity.

A note connection brought certainty: eleven survivors, including an electrician, had been there in a confined space for ten days without food and light. A voice connection was established later. Originally, 21 men had been able to save themselves in the breach, ten of whom were killed in the following days by falling rocks.

On Monday, November 4th, around 3:00 a.m., a rescue drilling could already be started after the drilling team, who traveled back to Emsland on Saturday, had been ordered to go back to the pit. The miners were supplied with food and clothing via the search bore with a caliber of 58 mm. Through the search hole, narrow metal profiles and tarpaulins were lowered to the trapped people, with which they could protect themselves against dust and rock impact, in order to give them the feeling of greater security.

On November 6th, the rescue well was drilled further with air flushing from a drilling depth of approx. 42 m in order to minimize the risk of stone chipping in the fracture cavity and to prevent water ingress from the drilling water. On this day, Chancellor Ludwig Erhard visited the site of the accident to encourage those trapped. On November 7th at around 6:07 a.m., the rescue bore breakthrough without major rockfall at the most favorable point imaginable in the northwest corner of the break cave. After preparing the dahlbusch bomb and execution of piping and cementing drove at 13:10 a riser of the mine rescue the trapped people down, he was followed by a driving Steiger. At 1:22 p.m. the first of the trapped miners saw the light of day again, at 2:25 p.m. the rescue operation was over. The rescued were taken to hospital for medical treatment.

"Miracle of Lengede"

The survival and rescue of the eleven miners were made easier by chance, if not made possible in the first place:

  1. The existence of a sufficiently large, accessible cavity in the fracture area above the water level, which initially accommodated 21 men.
  2. A compressed air line that was probably broken near the rupture cave, which supplied the trapped with enough fresh weather (air), and potable water in the cave.
  3. Finding the cavity: The original drilling point could only be estimated by the mine separator ; it then had to be relocated 2 m over several days because of a track on the works railway. The bore itself deviated again by more than 2 m from the vertical.
  4. In order to minimize the rockfall in the cave and not to cause water ingress, the last section had to be drilled with compressed air instead of water as a detergent. With a diameter of approx. 60 cm, this was new technical territory. By chance, a correspondingly powerful air compressor was available for delivery in a large machine factory in the Ruhr area. This was brought to Lengede as quickly as possible.

Fatally injured

With the rescue of the eleven men from the old man's cave, the rescue work in Lengede was finally stopped. 29 miners were killed in the mining accident. It can be assumed that 15 men drowned on the first day of the accident. Ten miners died in the old man in the ten days before the group there was found. They couldn't be saved.

During the subsequent swamp work (pumping out the water and cleaning up) the pit, the dead were found and recovered. Based on the growth of beards of three miners, it was found that they had lived up to 14 days after the water ingress. A miner's body was never found.

Investigations into the cause of the accident

The Hildesheim Public Prosecutor Erich Topf and the criminal police investigated during the rescue operation. That was unusual because the responsible mining authority usually leads the investigation. However, they wanted to prevent such a conflict of interests, even though the public prosecutor's office did not have the same level of expertise. The reason: The head of the Hildesheim Mining Authority was Oberbergrat Dr.-Ing. Wilhelm Ferling, father of the Lengeder mine director Dr.-Ing. Peter Ferling.

The cause of the disaster was the ingress of mud and water from the clarification pond 12 into several tunnels. This clarification pond still comes from the open pit. The tunnel accesses were sealed with concrete plugs and rock fillings, but did not hold up. The objectives of the investigation were therefore to determine ...

  • whether the professor for soil mechanics at the Technical University of Hanover, Dr. Alfred Streck, had given his expert opinion for the construction of the clarification pond "according to the rules of art";
  • whether the mine management provided the appraiser with reliable information;
  • whether the responsible mining authority Hildesheim carried out the testing and approval procedure for the installation of the sewage pond carefully enough and
  • whether the building contractor created the pond according to regulations.

The disaster and the investigation hit the operator Ilseder Hütte AG in economically difficult times. In order to bring the mine back to the state of the art, an investment program worth millions was started before the accident. Now there was a shutdown of the ore mining for months, the high costs of the repair and the rescue operation.

A previously unpublished investigation report, owned by the legal successor Salzgitter AG, states: "Under the circumstances described, the operation of the sewage pond posed a highly dangerous risk from the start". The NDR quoted from documents that are in the Lower Saxony State Archives. According to this, there were repeated water ingresses in the shaft before the mine accident, but the supervisory authorities were not informed.

Yet there was no trial. In January 1968, the higher regional court in Celle upheld the Hildesheim regional court, which had rejected a trial. Five mine officials and the head of the Hildesheim Mining Authority were charged, among other things, with negligent homicide.

Medial importance

The NDR for radio and television as well as the ZDF reported from Lengede . At times there were 366 newspaper reporters from all over the world and 83 radio and television employees from the two West German television stations on site. In the days after the disaster, the events spread around the world. With their technology, the radio stations made it possible for those trapped to communicate with the rescuers and their relatives. In addition, the television illuminated the rescue stations with spotlights at night. The bringing up of the eleven miners on November 7th was broadcast live on television in a special broadcast.

This media presence meant that the events from 1963 were filmed several times and that "the miracle of Lengede" is still known to many today.

Film adaptations and documentaries (selection)

  • 1969: The miracle of Lengede. A documentary game. Fritz Böttger, ZDF.
  • 1979: The Lengede miracle or “I don't wish anyone what we went through”. Hans-Dieter Grabe, ZDF.
  • 1997: The mine disaster. Chronicle and memory. NDR.
  • 2003: The Lengede drama. A film by Frank Bürgin from the ARD series: Protocol of a catastrophe . Documentary, Germany, A production of the Zeitlupe GmbH on behalf of the WDR.
  • 2003: “The miracle of Lengede” . Two-part feature film. On behalf of Sat.1.

Fictional works

  • Wolfgang Held : The stone face of Oedeleck. Youth story, 1966. Fictional, personalized story based on the Lengede misfortune.

Companies and devices involved

Involved number people
Drilling companies 06th 163
Other auxiliary companies 38 303
Institutes, associations 08th 035
Aid organizations 06th 450
total 58 951

In addition, there were 650 employees from Ilseder Hütte, in particular from the Lengede mine, as well as 12 companies that provided machines and special equipment without the use of personnel, as well as numerous workshop, transport and police forces.

The helpers were honored with the Lengede Medal .

Resumption of ore mining and closure of the mine

After completion of the Sümpfungsarbeiten the summer of 1964 which was promoting resumed, the pit became the most modern iron ore mine in Europe.

On December 31, 1977, iron ore mining was stopped. On September 20, 1979, the headframe of the Mathilde shaft was blown up.

Memorial and permanent exhibition

Description of the accident

On October 24, 1964, a year after the disaster, a memorial was set up at the site of the rescue drilling. A memorial plaque depicts the accident; the names of the dead are carved on a stone relief.

On January 26, 1968, another mining accident occurred in the Mathilde shaft, when twelve miners were killed in a severe explosion. A plaque at the entrance to the memorial commemorates this second mining disaster.

In 2007 a permanent exhibition with original exhibits from the rescue operation was set up in the Lengeder Rathaus. This is released for inspection.

literature

  • Otto Bilges, Rainer Bode, Joachim Marten: The miracle of Lengede . About the dramatic rescue operations in an iron ore mine in Lower Saxony. Bode, Haltern / Westfalen 1988, ISBN 978-3-925094-22-4 (photo documentation).
  • The miracle of Lengede . Contemporary witnesses remember. In: Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung . Peine 2003 (A documentation from the Peiner Allgemeine Zeitung).
  • From the crypt . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1963, pp. 23-36 ( online ).
  • Water saved her life . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1963, pp. 28 ( online ).
  • The Lengede boreholes . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1963, pp. 30 ( online ).
  • The Dahlbusch bomb . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1963, pp. 33 ( online ).
  • Ernst Hess: In the Kaue you spoke of the old man . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1963, pp. 23-41 ( online ).
  • Rudolf Dittrich: Drilling rescue measures after the mine accident at the Lengede-Broistedt iron ore mine . In: Erdoel-Zeitschrift . No. 12 . Urban, Vienna-Hamburg December 1963, p. 543-562 .
  • Stefan Willeke: Two weeks in the grave . In: Die Zeit , No. 43/2003
  • Günter Zeapernick: Lengede mine disaster . In: Technisches Hilfswerk, THW monthly magazine , No. 12, December 1963

Web links

Commons : Lengede mine disaster  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ material Incoming: One of above-ground obliquely in the pit leading - serving the material handling - route ; no tunnel .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Rudolf Stein: Misfortune and rescue in Lengede . In: Ilseder Hut . Company magazine for employees. Lengede special issue, No. 38 . Ilsede 1964, p. 9-26 .
  3. ↑ Documentation “Protocol of a Disaster. The Lengede drama. "(ARD 2003)
  4. ↑ From the crypt . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1963 ( online ).
  5. ↑ NDR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npoGlVLYlDM
  6. ↑ Kreiszeitung from October 24, 2013 https://www.kreiszeitung.de/lokales/niedersachsen/gedenkfeier-lengede-erinnert-verunglueckte-bergfolk-3183190.html
  7. ↑ BILD from October 24, 2013 https://www.bild.de/news/inland/grubenunglueck/grubenunglueck-wunder-von-lengede-33093276.bild.html
  8. ↑ Put on your helmet . In: Der Spiegel . No. 46 , 1963, pp. 43 ( online ).