“The Bang Gang”
When mining started at Telford in the 1940s small blasts were set by the explosive team using just jack hammers. 40 years later, on 22 June 1984, the largest mining blast on record in South Australia was detonated at the Leigh Creek Coalfield. It took four weeks for the drill and blast crew, or “Bang Gang” to drill 1,319 holes and fill them with 243 tons Ammonium Nitrate explosives. The resulting blast was calculated to have moved and broken 2,118,000 tons of overburden.
Photographs provided by Rosalie & John Patterson
“The blast of 1 million cubic meters of overburden (shale) in the M6 area of the mine circa 1982/83 was an Australian record. Max Duval was the Drill & Blast Engineer responsible for the blast design, Bill Nicholls was the Foreman - Drill & Blast and the “Bang Gang” consisted of John DeBruin, Terry Fuchs, Trev Moroney, Tom Hatch and Dickie Dowell plus a “few ring ins”. It took over a week to load the shot and the preparation time was a concern because of the potential for the Ammonium Nitrate (Nitropril) to be dissolved by groundwater present in some holes.”
