COAL MINES- Lessons of Topa Colliery Disaster

August 7, 1982 Lessons of Topa Colliery Disaster THE roof-collapse at Topa colliery of the Central Coalfields, in which 17 mint is were swatted to death like flics under a roof-fall measuring 10 metres by 25 metres by 0.5 metre in a depil- laring area, is one of the most common causes of multiple casualties in the Indian coal mines which have been adopting the room and pillar method of mining. It was for providing against this type of accidents that systematic timbering for the support of roof in depillaring areas was made mandatory under the Indian Mines Act and the Coal Mines Regulations made thereunder in 1926. In the earlier days the tempo of mining was slow because shot-holes were hand-drilled producing small quantities of coal which could be loaded by no more than two or three miners. The blasting effect was not intensive enough to disturb the timbers already erected for support of the roof. Casualties, when they occurred, were therefore confined to one or two miners.