Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government.

Brookwood Mine Disaster

Lapse in Appropriations

For workplace safety and health, please call 800-321-6742; for mine safety and health, please call 800-746-1553; for Job Corps, please call 800-733-5627 and for Wage and Hour, please call 1-866-487-9243 (1 866-4-US-WAGE).  This website is currently not being updated due to the suspension of Federal government services. The last update to the site was 10/1/2025.  Updates to the site will start again when the Federal government resumes operations.

September 23, 2001 

Brookwood, AL 

At approximately 5:15 p.m. on September 23, 2001, at the Jim Walter Resources No. 5 coal mine in Brookwood, Alabama - 40 miles southwest of Birmingham - a cave-in caused a release of methane gas that sparked two major explosions, killing 13 miners: Gaston Adams Jr., Raymond Ashworth, Nelson Banks, David Blevins, Clarence “Bit” Boyd, Wendell Johnson, John Knox, Dennis Mobley, Charles Nail, Joe Riggs, Charles Smith, Joe Sorah and Terry Stewart. 

The Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 established the Brookwood-Sago Mine Safety Grants Program.  It was named in remembrance of the 13 men who died in the Brookwood disaster and the 12 men who died after an explosion at Wolf Run Mining Company’s Sago Mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia in 2006.   

This competitive grant program provides funding for education and training programs to better identify, avoid, and prevent unsafe working conditions in and around mines.