Cost Cutting Fatally Trapped Workers Hundreds of Feet Underground | Plainly Difficult

Now quickly before we start I just have to say thank you all so much for your support throughout the years we're nearly at 1 million subscribers and we can almost taste it right without further Ado let's get on to the video it is an early May afternoon and there is panic in a silver mine smoke has filled up some of the working areas and miners are trying to escape to the surface the shift had 173 men operating in the mine and there were only limited roots to the surface frantically men are being hoisted out but the toxic fumes are suffocating many by 2 p.m. emergency responders are starting to arrive but miners including the host operator would be dead the disaster would take the name of the rather cheery sounding Sunshine they would go down as one of the worst mind disasters of the 20th century in the United States and the worst in ID History A New Nightmare at least for me has now been unlocked lost in the bellowing toxic smoke from a fire and suffocating to death trapped hundreds of feet underground my name is John and welcome to plainly [Music] difficult background Our Story begins with this stuff silver I don't need to tell tell you the obvious but I will that it's valuable and just to illustrate this I spent £15 on this silver Ingot like a mug the story of the sunshine mine goes all the way back to the 1880s with a claim of all deposits being filed in Shon County Idaho and I'm sure I completely Bulls up that pronunciation operations on the site stayed fairly small until a number of Acquisitions resulted in a formation of the sunshine Mining Company the exact here is not really known due to it being formed from multiple existing operations a note on the archives West website even says this which has copies of the company's accounts history it says it's unclear exactly when the sunshine mining company was founded since it grew out of already existing companies they seem to estimate it was between 1908 and 1918 regard list the company was set on trying to exploit the mine which was 8 m east of Kellogg Idaho and just as the side note here why whenever the name Kellogg is involved the story always ends up in tragedy in 1922 the company built a 25 ton per day Mill over the years as the mine was better exploited and production increased the mill will be modified and upgraded to processing over 500 tons per day but n mine did not only produce shiny shiny silver but also lead copper and zinc with work focusing around the sunshine and Chester veins over the years the mine would grow adding additional levels and shars by the early 1970s the mine bottomed out at 6,000 ft with a level at roughly intervals of 200 ft the company had a staff complement of around 522 people of which 429 were underground workers and this was split over three shifts over 5 days a week the main entrance to the mine was through a thing called The Jewel shaft which began along a 200t long horizontal section mining on site was done via a horizontal cut and sand fillm method ventilation was created via underground fans which sucked air down the jewel shaft then pushed it into the mine and after traveling around the number 12 B hole and back up via multiple joints between the levels it was then exhausted out of the big hole shaft in addition to this aircom was also installed at the lower levels to keep the working temperature a bit more habitable as I mentioned before the main entry in exit to the mine was VI the Dual shaft this had a chippy hoist for transporting materials and sta from the surface down to the 3700 ft level with another hoist in shaft number 10 to reach the lower levels this was a bit of a bottleneck as men had to wait their turn to be hauled to the surface this wasn't an issue during normal working as start and end times of shifts can be planned around the passage of personnel but in an emergency it could be a big issue understandably smoking was prohibited in certain areas of the mine especially around electrical equipment and the obvious not smoking around explosive stores to help with firefighting most of the min's work sites had one or 2 in water pipes which could be tapped into for ding any fires scattered around were also fire extinguishers and to protect workers in the case of a fire in the jewel shaft fire doors were installed on levels 3100 and 3700 at various points around the mine there will also fire plans and procedures printed for supervisors and staff to follow Communications lines ran from the surface to the Hoist rooms first aid area workshops and shafts but vitally not to every work area instead to pass a message to a person then someone would have to physically go there and speak to them this is kind of all very good in theory but what about in practice the disaster it is the morning of the 2nd of May 1972 and 173 workers are beginning their shift at the sunshine mine the morning shift is between 7:00 a.m. and 300 p.m. p.m. and it seems like a normal day as miners reach their scheduled workstations today the upper managements aren't on site they are attending a board meeting some 45 miles away as such local for men are in charge of daily operations but they only task with managing their own respective teams leaving no overall Management in place for the whole operation lunch time for the workers is around 11: to 11:30 in the morning most eat around their work carriers again so far everything seemed like a normal day at around 11:40 in the morning smoke was discovered coming from the 910 Rays down on level 3700 an alert was sent out smoke was rapidly filling up the mine the foreman on the number 10 shaft ordered an evacuation and this was around 12:00 p.m. rapidly men started being hauled from the lower levels up to the 3100 level but that didn't mean that they were safe in order to reach the surface they had to make their way down the long 3100 level to reach the bottom neck of the jeel shaft the first many workers knew of the fire was when smoke entered their work areas as the evacuation order was slow to reach each part of the MIM this was because of for most areas someone had to physically go to the workstations to verbally inform them of the emergency not the most effective way I must say the Hoist on the 10 shaft for the best part of the next hour went up and down picking up workers and taking them to the 3100t level however at 1 minute 1 in the afternoon the number 10 shaft Horseman was overcome by smoke many workers were still trapped on the low levels the bottleneck on the 3100 level would begin to take its victims multiple men had passed out from the carbon monoxide fumes a makeshift Rescue Team descended down the Dual shaft to help any men trying to reach safety interestingly many men's self-rescue packs had failed leaving them helpless to the fumes the last surviving minor from the 3100 level would reach the surface at half 1 in the afternoon rescue and Recovery operations would end up involving over 100 Personnel from multiple mines in the region by around 4:30 in the afternoon the first bodies were recovered from the 3700 level even if was stage the location of the fire wasn't exactly known leaving rescue crews fumbling around in the darkness of the smoke but they knew the rough area was around the 910 race multiple attempts to reach the number 10 shaft failed when responders met heat and fix smoke over the following days bulkheads would be built inside the mine in order to redirect in fresh air and exhaust smoke workers would approach the number 10 shaft from two directions the first was from the jewel shaft and the other was from the Silver Summit mine which connected to the sunshine mine on the 7th of May at around 8:00 p.m. both rescue crews reached each other on the 3100 ft level during this time multiple bodies had been found and recovered parts of the 910 Rays was discovered to have caved in amazingly two men had actually survived in a lower section of the mine in an area not overcome with smoke and they had endured over 175 hours in the Darkness so by the 13th of May all of the Dead have been recovered the number had totaled 91 and they were spread over eight levels all during this time the fire was still smoldering away the area that the fire was fought to be in was back fied with sand and sealed off starving it of fuel and air during the tail end of the recovery operation the investigation Into the Fire began which neatly leads us onto the next part of this video the investigation the Federal Bureau of mine set up investigation committee almost immediately after the last body was recovered access to the area that had caught fire was severely restricted mainly due to several cave-ins as this was because of the fire burning away the vital roof supports the site was poured over and all surviving staff were interviewed multiple violations of material storage Communications and safety rules were found although the exact cause was very difficult to find due to all of the evidence being burnt away and buried it was discovered around the time of the disaster that ventilation leaks had been filled in a side effect of this was that some waste areas where Timber used oil and paper were being stored were no longer being cooled and ventilated by the leaking air potentially this allowed the waste to become very hot due to oxidization of suon the material which after enough time and heat could lead to spontaneous combustion the location of the fire near the Ed air intake side of the mine allowed the deadly smoke to circulate the mine as quickly as it did the Federal Bureau of Mines released their report in July of 1972 and listed nine main contributing factors to the severe loss of life the emergency Skateway system from the mine was not adequate for a rapid evacuation top mine officials were not at the mine on the day of the fire and no person had been designated as being in charge of the entire operation individual supervisors were reluctant to order immediate evacuation or make a major decision such as stopping the 3400 level fans company Personnel delayed ordering evacuation of the mine for about 20 minutes while they searched for the fire the series of ventilation system used in the mine caused all persons in by the fire which contaminated the main intake Airways to be exposed to smoke and carbon monoxide most of the underground employees had not been trained in the use of the provider self- Rescuers and had difficulty in using them some self- Rescuers provided by the company had not been maintained in a usable condition mine survival training including evacuation procedures barricading and Hazards of Gases such as carbon monoxide had not been given to mine employees the emergency fire plan developed by the company was not effective the company had not conducted evacuation drills abandoned areas of the mine had not been sealed to exclude contain minated air from entering the ventilation air streams controls built into the ventilation system did not allow the isolation of number 10 shaft and its hoist rooms and service raises or the compartmentalization of the mime smok and gases from this fire was thus able to move unrestricted into almost all workings and travelways pretty much as soon as the fire had started the men down the mine were doomed sweeping reforms would come in 1977 with the federal mine safety and health act requiring multiple annual inspections of underground Min but don't get me wrong mining is still very dangerous but it was a step in the right direction the mine would be shut down for 7 months for repairs and refurbishing upon reopening the mine's production would increase producing nearly 20% of the country's silver or the site would officially cease operations in 2001 although there have been attempts to restarted over the years so scale time I reckon it's going to be a four but the for are being trapped on the ground around with a raging fire is in my mind much higher and this is what I've got for the bingo card do you agree let me know below this a plenty production all videos on the channel are Creative Commons attribution share like license plenty videos produced by me John in a currently very warm corner of Southern London UK I have a second YouTube channel Instagram and Twitter or X whatever the hell you want to call it and I'd also like to say a very nice and warm thank you to my patreon YouTube members for your financial support as well as the rest of you for tuning in every week and all it's left to say it's thank you for watching and Mr music play us out please [Music] [Music] oh

Channel: Plainly Difficult

Views: 134,925

Keywords: Sunshine mine disaster, mine, silver mine disaster, underground mine fire, mine disaster, seconds from disaster, plainly difficult documentary, British asmr, history documentary, strange but true, real life horror, buried underground

Id: cWJ9O__5urM

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 29 2024