Welsh Secretary announces inquiry into deaths of miners

An inquiry is to be held into the deaths of four miners in a flooded colliery in Swansea Valley.

The bodies of Charles Breslin, 62, David Powell, 50, Garry Jenkins, 39, and Phillip Hill, 45, were discovered in the Gleision Colliery, near Pontardawe, on Friday.

They had become trapped by flood waters while working 90m underground on Thursday.

According to the BBC, Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillian said the inquiry would be led by South Wales Police in the initial stages before being passed over to the Health and Safety Executive.

She said: “We must ensure we learn the lessons and find out what happened to these men.”

Hopes of finding the men alive were dashed as they were discovered by rescuers over the course of Friday.

Families were gathered at the community centre in Cilybebyll as they waited for news about their loved ones.

The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, was at the centre yesterday to offer comfort and support.

“I understand the anguish they are going through and I know they will draw strength from the community which is now enveloping itself around them,” said the Archbishop, whose own father was seriously injured in a mining accident.

“They can be assured that the whole of Wales is praying for them.”

Peter Hain, the local MP for Neath and a former Welsh Secretary, expressed his sorrow over the tragedy, the worst Welsh mining accident in decades.

“This is the one end that we all feared but hoped against hope would not happen,” he said.

“We have seen extraordinary courage shown by the families right through the night in torturous hours of waiting, and then finding out first that one miner had been found and not knowing who it was, and then another.

“We can’t even imagine what they have been through. This has been a stab right through the heart of the local community. There is a long tradition of mining here but nobody expected the tragedies that happened in past generations would happen today.”