In the morning, after we had our breakfast, we were driven to The National Coal Mining Museum. It is still a working coal mine although it has been converted to a museum and conducts guided tours for tourists and students.
We had to surrender all our electronic gadgets because any thing that can cause a spark can easily result in an explosion under ground and that would be a sight!
This is the exterior of the place and it may not seem much. But the tour into the mine was very educational.
We were all getting ready to go down. We had to wear the safety helmets and carry the heavy duty touches.
We learned that children as young as 6 started working in the mines with their families and it would have been a family effort. And in those days, they usually worked in total darkness for as long as 12 hours daily. Often, the space to move around was so small and tiny that these workers had to be crawling on their fours for a good 20 minutes before they even started work. And before machines were introduced, the workers would likely have to be working with their bare hands.
It was cold and when the touches were turned off, scary because it was complete darkness and one can only imagine how it was like to be in total darkness for more than half the day. :(
But our hour tour ended and we headed for lunch before we embarked on the 4 hours drive.
0 comments:
Post a Comment