Brunner Mine Disaster
The Brunner Mine disaster happened at 9:30 am on Thursday 26 March 1896 ( NZMT; UTC+11:30), when an explosion deep in the Brunner Mine, in the West Coast region of New Zealand, killed all 65 miners below ground. The Brunner Mine disaster is the deadliest mining disaster in New Zealand's history. The royal commission of inquiry put the cause of the disaster to a blown-out shot in a part of the mine where miners should not have been working. However, experienced miners claimed the explosion was caused by firedamp igniting, which had accumulated in the mine due to inadequate ventilation. Accident and response It is most likely that the explosion was caused by firedamp, a common hazard in coal mines when a pocket of methane gas is accidentally ignited and explodes. Firedamp is all the more hazardous because of the after effects of the explosion. Gases known as " afterdamp" – carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen produced by the explosion – often prove to be ju ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Time In New Zealand
Time in New Zealand is divided by law into two standard time zones. The main islands use New Zealand Standard Time (NZST), 12 hours in advance of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) / military M (Mike), while the outlying Chatham Islands use Chatham Standard Time (CHAST), 12 hours 45 minutes in advance of UTC / military M^ (Mike-Three). During summer months – from the last Sunday in September until the first Sunday in April – daylight saving time is observed and clocks are advanced one hour. New Zealand Daylight Time (NZDT) is 13 hours ahead of UTC, and Chatham Daylight Time (CHADT) 13 hours 45 minutes ahead. New Zealand's associated states – the Cook Islands and Niue – and the dependent territory of Tokelau use several different time zones at their own discretion. History On 2 November 1868, New Zealand officially adopted a standard time to be observed nationally, and was the first country to do so, about fifteen years before any other. Chatham Island was 45 minutes ah ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christchurch
Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / Ōtākaro flows through the centre of the city, with an urban park along its banks. The city's territorial authority population is people, and includes a number of smaller urban areas as well as rural areas. The population of the urban area is people. Christchurch is the second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand, after Auckland. It is the major urban area of an emerging sub-region known informally as Greater Christchurch. Notable smaller urban areas within this sub-region include Rangiora and Kaiapoi in Waimakariri District, north of the Waimakariri River, and Rolleston and Lincoln in Selwyn District to the south. The first inhabitants migrated to the area sometime between 1000 and 1250 AD. They hunted moa, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1896 Mining Disasters
Events January–March * January 2 – The Jameson Raid comes to an end, as Jameson surrenders to the Boers. * January 4 – Utah is admitted as the 45th U.S. state. * January 5 – An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Röntgen has discovered a type of radiation (later known as X-rays). * January 6 – Cecil Rhodes is forced to resign as Prime Minister of the Cape of Good Hope, for his involvement in the Jameson Raid. * January 7 – American culinary expert Fannie Farmer publishes her first cookbook. * January 12 – H. L. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph. * January 17 – Fourth Anglo-Ashanti War: British redcoats enter the Ashanti capital, Kumasi, and Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I is deposed. * January 18 – The X-ray machine is exhibited for the first time. * January 28 – Walter Arnold, of East Peckham, Kent, England, is fined 1 shilling for speeding at (exceeding the contemporary speed limit of , the first sp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1896 In New Zealand
The following lists events that happened during 1896 in New Zealand. Incumbents Regal and viceregal *Head of State – Queen Victoria *Governor – David Boyle, 7th Earl of Glasgow Government and law The Liberal Party is re-elected and begins the 13th New Zealand Parliament. *Speaker of the House – Sir Maurice O'Rorke *Prime Minister – Richard Seddon *Minister of Finance – Joseph Ward resigns on 16 June and is replaced by Richard Seddon * Chief Justice – Hon Sir James Prendergast *The ''Female Law Practitioners Act'' was passed in 1896, and Ethel Benjamin who had graduated in law from the University of Otago in 1896 was admitted as a barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in 1897. Parliamentary opposition Leader of the Opposition – William Russell. Main centre leaders *Mayor of Auckland – James Holland followed by Abraham Boardman *Mayor of Christchurch – Walter Cooper followed by Harry Joseph Beswick *Mayor of Dunedin – Nathaniel Wa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Grey District
Grey District is a district in the West Coast Region of New Zealand that covers Greymouth, Runanga, Blackball, Cobden, and settlements along the Grey River. It has a land area of . The seat of the Grey District Council, the local government authority that administers the district, is at Greymouth, where % of the district's population live. The Grey District is on the West Coast of the South Island. It stretches from the south banks of the Punakaiki River in the north, southeast to Mt Anderson, north to The Pinacle, southeast to Craigeburn, in a southeast direction to Mt Barron, southwest to Jacksons and following the Taramakau River to the Tasman Sea. The district is rich in history and character. Key industries are tourism, mining, agriculture, fishing, manufacturing and services industries. The main hospital for the West Coast is in Greymouth. Demographics Grey District covers and had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km2. li ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coal Mining Disasters In New Zealand
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution. With the invention of the steam engine, coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world's primary energy and over a third of its electricity. Some iron an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christchurch City Libraries
Christchurch City Libraries is operated by the Christchurch City Council and is a network of 21 libraries and a mobile book bus. Following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake the previous Christchurch Central Library building was demolished, and was replaced by a new central library building in Cathedral Square, ''Tūranga'', which opened in 2018. Early history The library began as the Mechanics' Institute in 1859, when 100 subscribers leased temporary premises in the then Town Hall. The collection consisted of a few hundred books. By 1863, with the help of a grant from the Provincial Government, the Mechanics' Institute opened a building on a half-acre of freehold land on the corner of Cambridge Terrace and Hereford Street, purchased the year before at a cost of £262.10.0. This site was to remain the home of the library until 1982. Debt, dwindling subscribers and other problems forced the institute to hand over the building to the Provincial Government in 1873. By this time ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Encyclopedia Of New Zealand
''Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand'' is an online encyclopedia established in 2001 by the New Zealand Government's Ministry for Culture and Heritage. The web-based content was developed in stages over the next several years; the first sections were published in 2005, and the last in 2014 marking its completion. ''Te Ara'' means "the pathway" in the Māori language, and contains over three million words in articles from over 450 authors. Over 30,000 images and video clips are included from thousands of contributors. History New Zealand's first recognisable encyclopedia was ''The Cyclopedia of New Zealand'', a commercial venture compiled and published between 1897 and 1908 in which businesses or people usually paid to be covered. In 1966 the New Zealand Government published ''An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand'', its first official encyclopedia, in three volumes. Although now superseded by ''Te Ara'', its historical importance led to its inclusion as a separate digital reso ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pike River Mine Disaster
The Pike River Mine disaster was a coal mining accident that began on 19 November 2010 in the Pike River Mine, northeast of Greymouth, in the West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island following a methane explosion at approximately 3:44 pm ( NZDT, UTC+13). The accident resulted in the deaths of 29 miners. The Pike River Mine incident ranks as New Zealand's worst mining disaster since 1914, when 43 men died at Ralph's Mine in Huntly. It also resulted in the country's worst loss of life caused by a single disaster since the 1979 crash of Air New Zealand Flight 901, although it was surpassed three months later by the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. At the time of the explosion 31 miners and contractors were below ground. Two miners managed to walk from the mine and were treated for moderate injuries. The remaining 16 miners and 13 contractors were believed to be at least from the mine's entrance at the time of the initial explosion. Subsequent explosions on 24, 26 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mining Accident
A mining accident is an accident that occurs during the process of mining minerals or metals. Thousands of miners die from mining accidents each year, especially from underground mining (hard rock), underground coal mining, although accidents also occur in Underground mining (hard rock), hard rock mining. Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an incident where there are five or more fatalities. Causes Mining accidents can occur from a variety of causes, including leaks of poisonous gases such as hydrogen sulfide or explosive natural gases, especially firedamp or methane, dust explosions, collapsing of mine Stoping (mining method), stopes, mining-induced seismicity, flooding, or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mining In New Zealand
Mining in New Zealand began when the Māori quarried rock such as argillite in times prior to European colonisation. Mining by Europeans began in the latter half of the 19th century. New Zealand has abundant resources of coal, silver, iron ore, limestone and gold. It ranked 22 in the world in terms of iron ore production and 29th in gold production. The total value of mineral production in New Zealand was $1.5 billion in 2006 (excluding oil and gas). The most important metallic minerals produced are gold (10.62 tonnes), silver (27.2 tonnes) and titanomagnetite ironsand (2.15 million tonnes). A 2008 report estimated that the unexploited resources of just seven core minerals (including gold, copper, iron and molybdenum) totalled around $140 billion in worth. The mining sector makes a significant contribution to the New Zealand economy. In 2004 the value of production from mining (excluding oil and gas) was $1,142 million, or just under 1% of gross domestic product. In 2017 mining ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Hector
Sir James Hector (16 March 1834 – 6 November 1907) was a Scottish-New Zealand geologist, naturalist, and surgeon who accompanied the Palliser Expedition as a surgeon and geologist. He went on to have a lengthy career as a government employed man of science in New Zealand, and during this period he dominated the Colony's scientific institutions in a way that no single man has since. Early life He was born at 11 Danube Street in Stockbridge, Edinburgh the son of Alexander Hector WS and his wife, Margaret Macrostie. He attended the Edinburgh Academy from 1844 to 1845. At 14, he began articles as an actuary at his father's office. He joined University of Edinburgh as a medical student and received his medical degree in 1856 at the age of 22. Palliser expedition Shortly after receiving his medical degree, upon the recommendation of Sir Roderick Murchison – director-general of the British Geological Survey – Hector was appointed geologist on the Palliser Expedition unde ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |