Miscellaneous - This Day That Age   

dated February 22, 1958: Chinakuri disaster

(From an editorial)

After the Loyabad disaster in 1935, when 208 lives were lost, the most grievous tragedy in the history of Indian coal mining happened on February 19 in Kulti, West Bengal, when there were fatal explosions in the recently developed pit of the Chinakuri Colliery belonging to the Bengal Coal Company Limited. One hundred and eighty-two lives are reported to have been claimed. The explosions have been so terrific that the affected areas have had to be sealed almost immediately in order to prevent the fire from spreading to other regions. Colliery disasters have a way of happening without any manner of warning and the tragedy in the present instance is all the more poignant because the Chief Inspector of Mines to the Government of India has stated that the affected colliery is the best in the whole of India. The last major accident was in 1956 when 42 miners died in the Burra Dhemo colliery on account of flooding.

But major tragedies are a powerful reminder that the greatest precautions can prove to be ineffective any moment. The government and the company authorities will no doubt be arranging for the grant of relief to the dependants of the victims of the latest disaster. But the loss of lives can never be adequately compensated.

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