The City of Nanaimo is preparing to mark 135 years since a pair of explosions killed 150 people in British Columbia's deadliest mining disaster.
The City of Nanaimo is preparing to mark 135 years since a pair of explosions killed 150 people in British Columbia's deadliest mining disaster.
Nanaimo facilities will lower their flags to half-mast today in honour of those killed in the May 3, 1887 explosions at the No. 1 Esplanade coal mine.
The explosions triggered an underground fire that burned 260 metres below the city's waterfront for two weeks.
The bodies of seven of the men working in the mine were never recovered and remain somewhere beneath the Nanaimo Harbour to this day.
The explosions were blamed on a badly planted explosive charge that ignited coal dust that had accumulated in the mine.
The event is considered the second-worst industrial accident in Canadian history, after the Hillcrest, Alta., mine blast that killed 189 miners in 1914.
Residents are invited to visit the Nanaimo Museum's coal mine exhibit to learn more about the deadly disaster and Nanaimo's mining history.
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