A Catastrophic Methane Explosion In A Main Vertical Shaft Serving An OFS Gold Mine

A powerful methane explosion in the mid-shaft pump station of a main service and ventilation shaft killed several persons on the station; more workers were killed when a mancage travelling down the shaft fell to the shaft bottom under a pile of broken concrete slabs from a brattice wall destroyed by the explosion venting into the shaft and a tangled mass of twisted steelwork from the equipped compartment. The newly-commissioned shaft serves a recent extension of an established mine on the Orange Free State (OFS) goldfield in South Africa. After outlining the circumstances in which the paper was written, and reviewing the nature and extent of the methane hazard in OFS mines, the paper describes the physical layout of the shaft and summarises evidence given by witnesses at the official inquiry concerning events prior to the explosion. No attempt is made to apportion blame for the incident.