In 1911 the Coal Mines Act collected together a number of regulations for
   safe working learned from bitter experience. The Act covered control of
   electrical equipment to prevent sparking, watering of dusty areas and also
   the need for all mines to have reversible fans so that clean air could be
   provided in cases of emergencies. This Act demanded that the fans be
   reversible by 1st January 1913. The mine owners at Senghenydd asked for
   and secured an extension which was to run out on 16th September 1913.

    At The time of the explosion, the fans were still not capable of being reversed
    at Senghenydd. There can be little doubt that if the full terms of the Mines Act
    had been operational at Senghenydd in October 1913 the death toll would
    have been significantly smaller.

     14th October 1913

     The second disaster at Senghenydd happend on 14th October 1913. This
     time, tragically, it took place at 10 minutes past 8 in the morning just after
     950 men had descended the pit and began to work the morning shift. A huge
     blast sent the two ton cage shooting up the Lancaster shaft from pit bottom
     tearing off the head of the banks - man on the winding gear and wrecking
     the pithead gear. The explosion and fire which followed it was concentrated
     on the West side of the pit.

     The men working the East side were brought safely up to the surface but on
     the West side an inferno raged and there was no adequate water supply to
     deal with it. Nor was it possible to reverse the fans to draw off the dangerous
     fumes. On wednesday the 15th hopes were raised when 18 men were found
     alive in the Bottanic district, some 1200 yards from the pit bottom but those
     were to be the last men found alive. On the 16th hope was abandoned and
     the fire was ringed in by sandbags. By the 20th the death toll had reached 440
     439 miners and 1 rescuer. 406 bodies had been recovered of which 346 had
     been identified, 48 were still unidentified, 6 had died in hospital and 33 men
     were still entombed in the pit.
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