"The 33"

An account of the rescue of 33 miners trapped 688 meters underground.

I was given this book back at crimbo last year, read it from cover to cover in a matter of hours and then put it back on the bookshelf.................roll on a few months (August), read all my usual books and thought to myself "I'll give that another go."

I have to say that its an objective, account of the rescue. The style of writing is in diary format covering each day as the drama unfolded before the world's eyes.

If you're stuck for something to read its well worth it!

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When I heard about the story, I was wondering what mining engineers across the world were thinking.

I'm sure they would have done it differently, looking at the plan of the collapse.

Having said, all the jerking off resulted in an epic story.

Other good reads that I have read recently are :

Fire and Brimstone, the North Butte Mine Fire of 1917. Apart from the fire the history of early 1900's mining and the politics surrounding it are worth a read alone.
The Deep Dark - Gren Olsen, The Sunshine Mine Fire of 1972. A major fire in the richest Silver Mine in the US.
Last Man Out - Melissa Greene, Springhill Coal Mine Disaster 1958, Novia Scotia.
No 9 - Bonnie Stewart, 1968 Farmington coal mine Disaster

You might say that I have a bit of a morbit interest in these, but when you are part of a mine rescue team, an understanding of what goes wrong and how others did what they could makes interesting reading. The frightening part is somethings never seem to change especially in terms of the Management and Inspectors. I hope things are done differently in the UK so that these sorts of things can't happen here.

I'm glad I don't work in a coal mine - they seem inherrently dangerous places, you can't beat good wet hardrock.

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Other good reads that I have read recently are :

Fire and Brimstone, the North Butte Mine Fire of 1917. Apart from the fire the history of early 1900's mining and the politics surrounding it are worth a read alone.
The Deep Dark - Gren Olsen, The Sunshine Mine Fire of 1972. A major fire in the richest Silver Mine in the US.
Last Man Out - Melissa Greene, Springhill Coal Mine Disaster 1958, Novia Scotia.
No 9 - Bonnie Stewart, 1968 Farmington coal mine Disaster

I agree Fire and Bromstone is a great read. On a similar subject The Battle for Butte is also very good and branching out I thought The North Wales Quarrymen !874-1922 an excellent read.

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