Johannesburg is a gold mining city and, through the decades, there have been a number of disasters related to the industry. A walk through Johannesburg's cemeteries offers a visual history of premature loss through mine related explosions. The granite memorial in the Braamfontein Cemetery erected in memory of those who lost their lives in the great dynamite explosion of 1896, is still moving and offers a unique insight into Johannesburg history.
The memorial to those who died in the disaster (Kathy Munro)
The memorial takes us back to one of the earliest and most tragic mining disasters in the city's history. On 19th February 1896, a freight train left stationary on a siding at the then Johannesburg Railway Station (it was in Braamfontein and today is known as the Braamfontein Station) carrying dynamite exploded. The train comprised of eight trucks of dynamite (Norwich says ten) or 2300 wooden cases adding up to between 56 and 60 tons of dynamite (AP Cartwright gives the statistics of 3000 cases of blasting gelatine amounting to 80 tons). The trucks had been left standing in the sun for three and a half days (why is a crucial question) and, when a shunting engine was backed into these trucks, the impact apparently caused the dynamite to explode in the hot afternoon...
