MHR 523 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Ron Fraser, Gas Detector, Westar

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Shortly before the morragh mine blew up last june, an alarm went off in the surface control room, which warned of high methane levels underground. Twenty miners were killed in the explosion at the financially troubled mine. Since the mine did not know who was on shift at the time of the explosion, many wives of the miners received phone calls that morning asking if their husbands were it home. At the time of the explosion, the mine had been under an order from the provincial labour department to establish a safety plan to prevent coal-dust explosion. The cause of the disaster was later established to have been ignition of coal dust, which was caused by an explosion of accumulated methane. Even before the two-year-old mine owned by the calgary-based westar resources. Inc. opened, it had been the subject of controversy. Morragh mine cost million to build and employed 210 people.