THE HAWK'S NEST TUNNEL DISASTER

Episode 202 | Historical Events

In this History episode we focus on the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster — the deadliest industrial catastrophe in American history that most people have never heard of. In 1930, Union Carbide drilled a three-mile tunnel through Gauley Mountain in West Virginia using thousands of workers, most of them Black migrants from the South. The mountain was made of almost pure silica. The company knew. They drilled anyway, without dust controls, without ventilation, without masks.

Between 476 and 764 workers died of acute silicosis within five years of the tunnel's completion — their lungs filled with silica that sliced through tissue like glass. Union Carbide acknowledged 109 deaths. Settled lawsuits for $130 per person. And completed the tunnel ahead of schedule. The bodies of many workers were buried in unmarked graves in a West Virginia cornfield.

We trace the congressional hearings of 1936, the "tunnelitis" cover story, the 2016 federal silica exposure limit update that finally reflected what the science had established in 1930, and the small National Park Service memorial with crosses that mostly have no names.

This podcast features narration with a synthetic AI voice.

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