Watch: People gather for the 96 Candles memorial ceremony remembering the miners who died in the 1902 Mount Kembla mine explosion.
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00:00🎵Bagpipes🎵
00:10🎵Let us rejoice, for we are one and free🎵
00:19🎵The Lord's my shepherd, I'll not want🎵
00:27At the time of the explosion, 260 men were in the mine.
00:32Of those 260 men, 96 miners, including young boys of the age of 14, had been killed.
00:40Included in the 96 miners who lost their lives were two rescuers who succumbed to the gas during their attempt to rescue the mine workers.
00:50The incident had an enormous impact on the Illawarra and the village where we are this evening, Mount Kembla,
00:57where the devastating effect of lives lost and the families that were tragically torn apart still resonates to this day.
01:07🎵Lonely, the wind sings🎵
01:11🎵Lonely, the bird wings through Boulder Hill🎵
01:17🎵Then all is still in Windy Gully🎵
01:22🎵Deep in the mountainside, 96 miners died🎵
01:31Closed down, the old pit. Sealed up the mouth of it.
01:38Francis Dungy, he was aged 45. He was the day deputy that day, buried at Mount Kembla, leaving his wife Mary and their seven children.
01:50Peter Frankins, lighting a candle for Stephen Gleeson, aged 33.
02:00🎵Lonely, the wind sings🎵
02:05🎵Lonely, the bird wings through Boulder Hill🎵
02:10🎵Then all is still in Windy Gully🎵
02:15🎵Deep in the mountainside, 96 miners died🎵
02:23🎵Massive hearts on fires and lungs caved in🎵
02:27🎵Old fathers, children, widows, once wives🎵
02:31🎵Oh, so much coal, but what's the price? Tell me, what's the price?🎵
02:39🎵96 souls in just one day, and you can't hope to move on🎵
02:45🎵Oh, buried down beneath the coal, beneath the coal🎵