Paulart

STRONGMAN - THE TRAGEDY is a documentary-drama telefeature about the events of January 19, 1967, when a coal dust explosion - a massive fireball, ripped through Green's Section of the Strongman Mine, devouring all in its path. Nineteen men were killed, 15 bodies were recovered on the same day, two more two weeks later and two were never found. The tight-knit West Coast community was devastated and many people still bear the scars today.

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The story unfolds in a series of compelling interviews with people who were involved in one way or another:  Alice Noble, whose husband Ginty got up and went to work as usual, speaks movingly - of waiting for the terrible new of his fate.  Gary Coghlan, seven years old at the time, tells of hearing of his father's death from the Catholic priest, the anger of his reaction and its effect on the rest of his life.  Mick O'Donnell, a miner evacuated from another section who goes into Greens Section immediately to look for his brother, fortunately finding him alive; Bill Munden and Harry Bell, two of many Mines Rescue workers who raced to Strongman from all over the West Coast to go into the devastated section;  Doris Baxendale, who suddenly found herself having to make sandwiches "full of tears" for the rescue workers;  Laurie Anisy, the undertaker's assistant who had to prepare caskets in just the right way for men he had played football with.

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An entire community was involved and affected and this film conveys the powerful emotions that are not far from the surface even after more than 40 years.

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The interviews are illustrated by archival film and photographs and made more vivid by drama insert.  Woven into the peoples stories are scenes from a dramatic reconstruction of the subsequent Commission of Inquiry, which explored the causes behind a disaster "waiting to happen!"

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