Stolzenbach mine disaster
The Stolzenbach mine disaster was a mining disaster that occurred on June 1, 1988 in the Stolzenbach mine in the Borken lignite district ( Hesse , Germany ). In the mining accident 51 of 57 retracted came miners , artisans and Steiger died.
After the last surviving miners had been rescued, the Stolzenbach mine was not reopened, but sealed with concrete and shut down.
chronology
bad luck
On June 1, 1988 at around 12:30 p.m., during robbery work in an exploited mining field, a coal dust explosion occurred immediately after the expansion was blasted . Of six explosive charges, five detonated at the same time as planned, the sixth, delayed detonation, ignited the whirled up coal dust that lay in large quantities on the steel structure. The pressure wave spread to the east field and converted a large part of the existing oxygen into toxic carbon monoxide .
The explosion was so massive that large pieces of concrete were thrown up to 200 m. Eight miners on the midday shift who were about to drive in were injured, some seriously.
The connections to the miners underground were destroyed in the explosion, neither the mine radio nor the phone worked. Due to the failure of the energy supply, the ventilation , the conveying equipment and the compressed air supply to the mine were also out of order. In addition, the journeys installed in the three weather shafts, together with the resting platforms, were thrown out in the explosion and the surrounds of the weather shafts were also badly damaged.
Rescue work
Despite measures taken immediately, the first team of the Stolzenbach mine rescue team was only able to enter the sloping material tunnel at 1:40 p.m., where they found severe damage to the material routes and the Nordfeld cableway shaft. Together with the Hirschhagen mine rescue service and the technical relief organization , an attempt was made to penetrate the weather shafts via the drives. At a depth of 60 or 80 meters , the soldiers encountered an extremely high concentration of carbon monoxide. All of the oxygen had been used up by the explosion. Since the usual CO filter self-rescuers were unsuitable for such high CO concentrations, as they require oxygen in the ambient air to breathe, it was initially assumed that there could be no survivors. For such conditions, only oxygen self-rescuers are suitable, which generate the breathing oxygen themselves through a chemical reaction and thus make it independent of the ambient air. With such oxygen self-rescuers, the survivors were later brought out of the pit by the poison gases up to days.
The main mine rescue service in Clausthal-Zellerfeld alerted a total of 29 mine rescue teams. A total of 807 soldiers and a dog squadron were deployed. In order to protect the rescue work and the relatives from onlookers , the area was cordoned off over a large area.
About three hours after the explosion, at 3:20 p.m., an employee of the electrics department intercepted a radio message according to which six survivors were on mountain 1-Nord, in the eastern part of the mine. This part of the pit was so remote and far from the presumed starting point of the explosion that everyone involved considered the chances of survival there to be the highest. Although the message was passed on directly to the crisis team via the radio, the crisis team did nothing in the next few hours to initiate targeted rescue measures for this part of the mine. In a press conference at 6 p.m., receipt of the radio message was initially denied by the crisis team and then classified as an error the following day.
By the morning of June 2, 1988, 29 miners could only be rescued dead. The press has already covered 57 dead .
Wells were drilled to clarify the situation on site. The extent to which gases or oxygen were present was also measured. When drilling in the east field on June 3, at 8:20 p.m., it was found that no toxic gases were escaping.
At 00:15 on June 4, it was established that the section in which the borehole had been drilled had no ventilation due to intrusions into the route . Since no poisonous gases were released, hopes of finding survivors arose. However, initially no noises could be heard from underground until a reporter from Hessischer Rundfunk came up with the idea of lowering a directional microphone . At 1:15 a.m., the microphone reached 70 meters underground. But it was not deep enough to be able to locate survivors with certainty. Another 100 meters of microphone cable were brought from the HR studio in Kassel. The trapped people were reached with the additional cable and it was clear: There are survivors. They survived in a short stretch of road that the fire roller had not reached. These were the six miners who, a few hours after the accident, had sent a radio message with their position in the eastern field.
The mine rescue services did not reach the survivors underground until 4:20 a.m. At 5:20 a.m. the first survivor from the Stolzenbach mine arrived over the course of days. Over the next 50 minutes, the remaining five survivors were brought up for days.
June 10th took away the relatives' last hope of seeing their men who had stayed underground again alive. The last missing miners were found dead.
Sadness
After the rescue, the miners who stayed underground (38 Germans and 13 Turks) were commemorated in a joint funeral service with over 3000 mourners in Borken. The bodies of the Turkish buddies were flown to Turkey for burial.
Processes
In 2008, the editors of the HR report of the operator Preussen Elektra from 1967 revealed that the coal extracted there had a moisture content of around 22 to 25 percent. However, the explosives used in 1988 were only allowed to be used by the operator for coal with a moisture content of around 40 percent. In view of the explosive coal dust, it would have been the duty of the operator according to the mining law to use less dangerous but also more expensive weather explosives ; In addition, there were no explosion thresholds built into the pit, which are common in underground coal mining.
The relatives of the killed miners then filed a civil action for damages against the legal successor E.ON ; a statute of limitations had already entered into criminal law. The Kassel Regional Court dismissed the lawsuit in August 2014. In the appellate instance, the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court expressed the legal view that the survivors' claim to compensation for pain and suffering due to negligent omission is possible, but the statute of limitations of the claim has probably already come into effect. The parties then ended the litigation in November 2016 with a settlement, the content of which was agreed not to disclose.
Remembrance on site
Today there is a memorial at the former cableway shaft, which is looked after by the Hessian lignite mining museum . Every year on June 1st, the bereaved come together here for silent remembrance.
Stolzenbach memorial
Detail of the monument
labeling
literature
- Andreas Brandtner: After the disaster. The mine disaster at Borken . A report on three years of psychosocial help. Ed .: Stolzenbachhilfe working group. 1st edition. Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1992, ISBN 3-525-45751-0 .
- Rainer Mathes, Hans-Dieter Gärtner, Andreas Czaplicki: Communication in the Crisis: Autopsy of a Media Event . The mine accident in Borken. In: Institute for Media Development and Communication (Ed.): Communication today and tomorrow . 1st edition. Publishing group Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-927282-11-1 .
- Ulf Hempler: The Stolzenbach mine disaster: the announced catastrophe and the miracle that was almost prevented . 1st edition. Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2015, ISBN 978-3-7386-1294-3 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oliver Schmid, Nick Pietzonka: Why the Stolzenbach mine exploded. (Flash video, 44:41 min) One misfortune - two scandals. In: Stories from Hessen. HR Online, May 28, 2013, accessed August 13, 2014 .
- ↑ The Stolzenbach mine disaster on June 1, 1988. Dietz-Online, accessed on June 30, 2010 : “The construction and concrete parts, which were thrown up to 200 m, aimed z. T. considerable damage. "
- ↑ Ulf Hempler, The Stolzenbach mine accident ; published 2015; Books on Demand, Norderstedt, ISBN 978-3-7386-1294-3
- ↑ Ulf Hempler, The Stolzenbach mine accident ; published 2015; Books on Demand, Norderstedt, ISBN 978-3-7386-1294-3
- ^ Pasch, Ralf; Mine accident in Borken: judge rejects complaint ; HNA (Hessian Lower Saxony General); August 14, 2014
- ↑ Stolzenbach mining accident in court: "It's not about the money". In: hna.de. April 29, 2016. Retrieved November 24, 2016 .
- ↑ Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt am Main - date preview. In: olg-frankfurt-justiz.hessen.de. November 24, 2016. Retrieved November 24, 2016 .
- ↑ Stolzenbach Memorial - Linger and Remember. Hessian lignite mining museum, archived from the original on March 8, 2012 ; accessed on January 13, 2016 .
Web links
- Werner Schlegel: The mine accident in Borken. A miracle - because coincidence helped. In: The time. June 10, 1988, accessed August 13, 2014 (allegations and speculation following the surprise rescue of the six miners).
- Mine accident 20 years ago. Survivors sue for damages. In: rp-online.de. July 23, 2009, accessed August 13, 2014 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 0 ′ 39 ″ N , 9 ° 17 ′ 35 ″ E