Many of us are only here because our ancestors had the good fortune to be the ones who didn't die down the mines, somewhere or other in the world. I have 19th century mine-worker ancestors from Cornwall and Nottinghamshire in England. (There's a saying about Cornish mine workers: Wherever you may go in the world, if you see a hole in the ground, you'll find a Cornishman at the bottom of it.) The tuberculosis that mine workers are at higher risk of took half my great-grandfather's family, but he survived that and the British imperialist adventure in India (smart man deserted rather than getting sent to Afghanistan after 5 years), and thus I'm here.
It's a hard life for miners and their families everywhere. Looking for a reference to a particularly awful one in Canada, I first found this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Springhill_mining_disasterThe term Springhill mining disaster can refer to any of three separate Canadian mining disasters which occurred in 1891, 1956, and 1958 in different mines within the Springhill coal field, in close proximity to the town of Springhill in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia.
Westray was the one I was thinking of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westray_MineOn Saturday, May 9, 1992, a methane gas, and subsequent coal dust explosion at 5:18 a.m. ADT killed 26 miners. It was Canada's worst mining disaster since 1958, when a cave-in at another Nova Scotia coal mine, in Springhill, claimed the lives of 75 miners.
... Two of the mine's managers, Gerald Phillips and Roger Parry, were charged with 26 accounts of manslaughter and criminal negligence causing death. ...
But the trial was mishandled, and came to naught. The new legislation on corporate responsibility is not seen as a particularly effective deterrent.
And that's probably what's really needed.