NEW GLASGOW, N.S. – Twenty years after losing his brother in the Westray mine disaster in Nova Scotia, Allen Martin recalled treasured moments from his own life that his brother Glenn missed.
“My daughter growing up, the fishing trip, our grandchild,” he said as he stood before a granite memorial that includes Glenn’s name and those of 25 others who died in a methane and coal dust explosion on May 9, 1992.
“We didn’t just lose him. We lost memories, we lost events and those things can never be replaced.”
Allen Martin was among a group of 50 relatives, politicians and union leaders who attended a sombre vigil early Wednesday in New Glasgow, not far from the former mine site.
Under leaden skies that delivered a steady downpour, Rev. Glen Matheson opened the ceremony with a moment of silence at about 7 a.m.
“Some of us still have ghosts that walk beside us,” said the Presbyterian minister, adding that he spent time the evening before with relatives who continue to grieve for lost loved ones.
He recalled saying prayers 20 years earlier after rescuers pulled four bodies from the charred mine.
“The heavens opened and the rain splattered knee-deep,” he said. “That downpour followed us from the mine opening, down the driveway and all the way to the Trans-Canada Highway.”
Matheson said he was standing Wednesday above the section of the mine where the bodies of 11 men remain buried. Searchers had to leave them entombed in the mine because the rock had become too unstable.
“As long as we live, we will not forget,” he said.
“As long as we live, we will do our best to keep ourselves safe and all those around us safe.”
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Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter issued a statement saying Nova Scotians will never forget the mining disaster, one of the deadliest in Canadian history.
“Our thoughts are with the surviving workers, and the families and friends of those killed, who continue to be affected by this terrible event,” he said.
“I also want to thank the surrounding community, the rescue teams and members of the labour movement, especially the United Steelworkers, for their ongoing support of their fellow Nova Scotians.”
The mine blew up at 5:18 a.m. as a gush of methane gas escaped from the Foord coal seam and erupted into flames.
As a fireball raced through the tunnels, it stirred up coal dust that exploded in a massive blast, shaking homes a kilometre away.
In April 1993, the RCMP charged the mine’s owner, Toronto-based Curragh Resources Inc., and two of its former managers with manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death. But the case eventually fell apart when the Crown concluded convictions were unlikely.
A public inquiry led by Nova Scotia Supreme Court Judge Peter Richard concluded the tragedy was the result of “incompetence, mismanagement, bureaucratic bungling, deceit, ruthlessness, coverups, apathy, expediency and cynical indifference.”
Richard singled out Westray management as ultimately responsible for conditions at the colliery. The judge also blamed complacent administrators who tolerated poor safety practices and outdated mining laws.
Of the 74 recommendations made by Richard, the majority were addressed with the implementation of the province’s Underground Mining Regulations in 2003, the premier said.
“Since that fateful day, successive governments have made significant changes to improve workplace health and safety, and to make sure that the full force of the law is felt in support of this national goal,” Dexter said.
“However, that doesn’t mean we are done. … Together, we will ensure that Westray is never forgotten and we will stay vigilant to make sure that something like this never happens again.”
Union leaders who spoke at the vigil Wednesday said governments and companies haven’t learned from the tragedy, adding that governments have not been tough enough on companies that violate health and safety rules.
Stephen Hunt, a United Steelworkers director who testified at the Westray inquiry, said there hasn’t been enough prosecutions under the so-called Westray Act.
The federal law enacted in 2004 provided new rules for attributing criminal liability to corporations and their representatives when workers are injured or killed on the job.
The law has been used in criminal prosecutions several times, but the courts have registered just two convictions.
“This is a terribly sad moment to remember,” said Hunt.
“We pledged 20 years ago, ‘No more Westrays.’ Unfortunately in this country we have a Westray every day, sometimes two or three times a day. A thousand people a year die because of their work. It’s one of the worst records in the industrialized world.
“We established a law that’s supposed to put people in jail when they kill workers and … since that law has been passed, about 9,000 workers have died because of their work and not one CEO is in jail because of it.”
A group of mine rescuers from Bathurst, N.B., also attended the vigil and presented a yellowing thank-you poster created by schoolchildren at the time of the disaster.
Reg Falconer, one of the New Brunswick rescuers who went into Westray looking for survivors after the explosion, said he met Tuesday evening with the brother of Robert Doyle, a 22-year-old miner whose body he discovered.
Falconer said such personal connections still produce raw emotions, despite the passage of two decades.
“(Robert) was the youngest boy in that family. I can’t help but think it must have been terribly hard for that mother and father,” he said.
“I felt I made a connection for him. I helped connect him a lot closer to his brother.”
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