More than 1800 mine workers have been killed in the Hunter Valley coal mines since mining began.
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They include the four casualties of the Gretley Colliery mining disaster.
On November 14, 1996, Edward Batterham, 24, Damon Murray, 19, John Hunter, 36, and Mark Kasier, 30, drowned in a mining shaft 150 metres underground after they drilled into a flooded shaft at the Gretley Colliery.
In 2004, the owners and operators of the Hunter Valley colliery were found guilty of safety breaches that led to the deaths.
It was the first time in the history of the NSW coal industry that anyone had been convicted for the loss of life.
On April 4, 2009, Maitland man Daniel Hill was repairing machinery in Integra Coal’s underground mine at Glennies Creek, near Singleton, when a coupling broke off a shear shaft and struck him in the head.
Mr Hill, 34, left behind a wife Melanie and three young sons Declan, Vincent and Ronan.
In November last year a female contractor was killed at a Ravensworth open cut coal mine in the Hunter Valley.
The woman, 38, was crushed to death when the light vehicle she was driving and a dump truck collided.