Safety Improvements Demanded in Wake of W. German Mine Disaster
A union leader demanded improved safety measures for miners Friday, as grieving family members gathered at a makeshift morgue to say farewell to victims of West Germany’s worst mining disaster in 26 years.
Fifty-seven men died 330 feet underground Wednesday afternoon when a methane gas explosion shook the Stolzenbach mine in this town, 72 miles northeast of Frankfurt.
Rescue workers found 36 bodies and had pulled 28 to the surface by Friday afternoon, using breathing masks to shield them against dangerous levels of the deadly carbon monoxide that had killed some of the miners. The owner of the mine vowed to keep searching for 21 bodies still unaccounted for.
The blast killed one-third of the work force at the mine owned by Preussen Elektra, the leading employer in Borken and one of West Germany’s largest utility companies.
“Hardly a home in this town of 15,000 has been spared sorrow and suffering,” commented West Germany’s ZDF television network.
Heinz-Werner Meyer, the head of the union representing 350,000 West German miners and energy workers, called for “an improvement of safety underground.”
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