Manslaughter charge at mine

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The manager of a coal mine in Wales where four men drowned last month has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter.

The pit manager, Malcolm Fyfield, escaped after the catastrophic flood at the Gleision Colliery near Swansea in September.

Yesterday, he was arrested by officers investigating the accident, Wales' worst mining disaster in three decades.

Garry Jenkins, 39, Philip Hill, 44, David Powell, 50, and Charles Breslin, 62, were found dead after a fruitless 30-hour rescue mission. There were seven people underground when the accident happened. Two were able to escape the mine immediately.

Fyfield, 55, who is being held under suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter, made his way through 240m of mine shafts and slurry and was found collapsed outside the pit. He was taken to the Morriston Hospital in Swansea, where he has been for the past month.

The investigation will examine whether the miners were working in a licensed section of the Gleision site and whether they were a safe distance from underground water sources. The flooding is understood to have begun after a dynamite explosion. The safest minimum distance for using dynamite near underground water is 37m.

"We will do everything possible to fully understand how these four men lost their lives," said Detective Chief Inspector Dorian Lloyd, the senior investigating officer in the case. "We continue to work closely with the bereaved families throughout this process and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the communities affected by this incident for their continued support and patience."

The victims' families and community leaders were informed of the arrest. Wayne Thomas, who is the National Union of Mineworkers South Wales general secretary and was a friend of the deceased miners, said Fyfield was an experienced miner but had only been working at Gleision for "three or four months".

Peter Hain, the shadow Welsh secretary and MP for Neath, said: "The families are still clearly traumatised by the loss of loved ones. They want to know why and how it happened.

"The decision to launch a prosecution is part of discovering an answer for them."

- Independent