NSWMining
Mount Kembla
A colliery village under the mountain, marked by Australia’s worst mine disaster.
1883Mount Kembla colliery opens
WHAT STARTED IT
Coal lay in the escarpment slopes below Mount Kembla, where kerosene shale had been worked since the 1860s, and the colliery’s promoters built a railway from the mine down to a jetty at Port Kembla. The village grew up below the colliery around its miners.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
On 31 July 1902 an explosion of gas and coal dust, set off by the miners’ naked lights, killed 96 men and boys, two of them rescuers, leaving many widows and children in the village. The mine worked on under new owners, including Australian Iron & Steel from 1946, until it closed in 1970 after 87 years.
TURNING POINTS
1883The colliery opens, and its railway and jetty at Port Kembla enter service in February.
1898The village hotel opens.
1902An explosion at the colliery on 31 July kills 96 men and boys.
1946Australian Iron & Steel takes over the colliery and railway.
1970The colliery closes, having produced more than 14 million tons of coal.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A small semi-rural village on Wollongong’s western edge, where the 1898 hotel still trades. Many of the 1902 victims lie in the Windy Gully cemetery further up the mountain, the disaster site is on the State Heritage Register, and the mine railway still carries coal from the Dendrobium mine to Port Kembla.