The Mount Kembla mine explosion had an enormous impact on the Illawarra, and more specifically on the village of Mount Kembla, where the shattering effect of lives lost and families torn apart resonates to this day.

On July 31, 1902, the blast at the mine claimed the lives of 94 men and boys working underground and two men attempting to rescue survivors after the explosion. It was so powerful that it was felt 11 kilometres away, and created 33 widows and took the fathers of 120 children.

South Coast Labour Council assistant secretary Mick Cross took to the crowd to remember the miners.

"We gather here today to pay our respects to those fallen comrades in that mine on that on that fateful day," Mr Cross said.

"The disaster shook this town to its very core ... A disaster of that magnitude never leaves the psyche of a community. I'm sure it will never leave the psyche of the Mount Kembla community."

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Mining and Energy Union district secretary Andy Davey said while the Mount Kembla explosion remains the biggest mining disaster in the country, major safety risks still exist for miners.

He also acknowledged the 14 lives lost in the Appin mine explosion 40 years ago.

"July is a really bad month for mining disasters Australia-wide," Mr Davey said.

Unionists also took the opportunity to acknowledge that while health and safety protocols have improved drastically since the devastation, one injury in the workplace today is one too many.

The group feared lives could still be at risk if a disaster of the same magnitude happened today.

"We still see today in Australia, people die at work. And it is absolutely unacceptable," Mr Cross said.

"And I absolutely acknowledge that mine safety has improved since 1902. That's without doubt ... but even back then they were still using flame lamps into the 1940s.

"As workers, and as unions, we must never ever rest until one person doesn't suffer that injury at work."

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Union members from a spectrum of industries also took the opportunity to acknowledge nurses, and said that Wollongong Hospital would "simply not cope" if an unpredictable disaster were to occur again.

The crowd made renewed calls to demand improvements to staff to patient ratios.

"What we have to remember is, without our nurses, we would be in dire straits with workplace injuries," Mr Davey said.

"If we were to have a disaster, that nurse to patient ratio is the biggest issue we would have right now."

Secretary of the NSW Nurses and Midwives' Association's Wollongong Hospital branch, Genevieve Stone, said there is a severe shortage of nurses at the hospital.

"If an incident like this were to happen now, we would not cope," Ms Stone said.

"In the Illawarra area alone, we are over 100 positions short at the hospital. They have not been filled.

"No one thought a pandemic happened and it did. They never expected this mining accident to happen, but you just never know."

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