Disasters

Explosions, floods, collapses and other major incidents at UK mines — including significant post-closure incidents in abandoned workings. Each record is researched to the same standard as a mine or terminology entry, not just a casualty count.

23 disasters.

• Leadhills (Minehill) suffocation, 1817
  1817 · Gas / Asphyxiation · South Lanarkshire · 7 fatalities
  Seven miners were suffocated by fumes from a pumping engine at the Minehill workings at Leadhills in 1817 — a disaster local accounts say discouraged mining there for years afterwards.
• Magpie Mine suffocation of three Maypitt miners
  1833 · Gas / Asphyxiation · Derbyshire · 3 fatalities
  Three miners from the neighbouring Maypitt mine suffocated after Magpie miners lit fires underground to smoke them out during a dispute over a shared lead vein — the origin of the mine's 'Widow's Curse' story.
• Bryngwiog Mine inrush, 1862
  February 1862 · Flooding / Inundation · Flintshire · 16 fatalities
  Sixteen men drowned when Bryngwiog Mine, on Halkyn Mountain, broke into the flooded old workings of the abandoned Hendre Mine and filled with water within minutes — one of the worst disasters in the district's lead-mining history.
• Botallack Mine shaft accident
  18 April 1863 · Winding / Shaft Accident · Cornwall · 9 fatalities
  The chain hauling a man-carriage up the Boscawen Diagonal Shaft broke; the carriage ran back out of control and struck timber at the bottom, killing all nine men and boys aboard.
• Parys Mountain boiler explosion, 1870
  19 October 1870 · Explosion · Anglesey
  A large Cornish boiler at the ore-crushing plant exploded during a lunch break, demolishing the building; accounts from the same local research group differ sharply on the death toll, citing either one confirmed death with 8–10 injured, or seven men killed.
• Cwmorthin fatal accident and mine-status test case
  1875 · Other · Gwynedd
  A fatal accident at Cwmorthin — nicknamed 'The Slaughterhouse' after 21 workers died there between 1875 and 1893 — led to a test case that reclassified the site as a mine rather than an exempt quarry under new safety law, and the company was wound up soon after.
• Chatterley Whitfield (Whitfield) Colliery explosion
  7 February 1881 · Explosion · Staffordshire
  A smithy fire spread through the ventilation flue and ignited gas underground, and further explosions followed when ventilation was cut to fight the fire — sources give the final death toll as anywhere from 21 to 28.
• Cwmorthin Back Vein collapse
  1884 · Collapse / Roof Fall · Gwynedd
  A catastrophic collapse in the Back Vein roughly halved production and made about half the workings inaccessible, eventually forcing the operating company into liquidation.
• Mill Close Mine firedamp explosion
  3 November 1887 · Explosion · Derbyshire · 5 fatalities
  Five miners died when a shot-firer's naked flame ignited firedamp gas that had already been detected and flagged as dangerous in the days before the blast.
• Nantymwyn dynamite explosion, 1892
  28 March 1892 · Explosion · Carmarthenshire · 2 fatalities
  Two Cornish miners, William Beswetherick and John Lewarne, died after a box of gelatine dynamite they were handling caught fire and partly exploded underground — an incident that prompted a formal report to the Home Secretary by HM Inspector of Explosives.
• Wheal Owles flooding disaster
  10 January 1893 · Flooding / Inundation · Cornwall · 20 fatalities
  Miners broke through into the flooded, long-abandoned workings of Wheal Drea, trapping and drowning twenty men and boys underground.
• Dolcoath Mine stope collapse
  20 September 1893 · Collapse / Roof Fall · Cornwall · 8 fatalities
  A timbered stope collapsed at the 412-fathom level, one of the deepest workings in Cornwall, killing eight miners and trapping a ninth for over a day and a half before he was rescued unhurt.
• Snailbeach Mine winding-rope accident, 1895
  6 March 1895 · Winding / Shaft Accident · Shropshire · 7 fatalities
  Seven miners were killed at George's Shaft when the winding rope — in continuous service for eight and a half years, twice the normal replacement interval — snapped internally and dropped their cage 252 yards to the bottom of the shaft.
• Snaefell Mine disaster
  10 May 1897 · Gas / Asphyxiation · Isle of Man
  Timber left smouldering underground filled the mine's shafts with carbon monoxide; miners descending on the morning shift were overwhelmed before they realised the danger. Sources give the death toll as 19-23.
• Great Laxey Mine scaffold collapse
  10 December 1904 · Collapse / Roof Fall · Isle of Man · 4 fatalities
  A working scaffold gave way underground, and the four men on it fell into a water-filled sump about 17 feet deep. All four drowned, including the youngest, 18-year-old Henry Lewis Gelling.
• Big Pit explosion (1908)
  11 December 1908 · Explosion · Torfaen · 3 fatalities
  A localised underground explosion killed three men.
• Big Pit fire (1913)
  7 April 1913 · Fire · Torfaen · 3 fatalities
  Three men died in a fire near the underground stables while trying to rescue the pit ponies stabled there; the horses survived.
• Levant Mine man-engine disaster
  20 October 1919 · Winding / Shaft Accident · Cornwall · 31 fatalities
  During a shift change at Levant Mine, a link between the man-engine's reciprocating rod and its surface beam broke, collapsing the engine down the shaft while 130-150 miners were using it.
• East Pool Mine shaft collapse
  1921 · Collapse / Roof Fall · Cornwall · 0 fatalities
  A large underground rockfall destroyed both of East Pool's winding shafts and flooded the mine; no deaths were reported, but the mine had to sink an entirely new shaft to survive.
• Keppel Cove dam burst, 1927
  night of 28–29 October 1927 · Flooding / Inundation · Cumbria
  After a night of exceptional rainfall and gale-force winds, the earth dam supplying Greenside Mine's hydro-electric power at Keppel Cove was overtopped and burst, sending a flood down into Glenridding village that wrecked shops, bridges and a hotel — four hotel staff were rescued from a flooding basement.
• Alderley Edge West Mine deaths
  May 1929 · Other · Cheshire · 2 fatalities
  Two men, George Etchells and Alfred Hadfield, died after going into the disused West Mine and losing their way in its passages; their bodies were not found for three months.
• Greenside Mine fire, 1952
  7 July 1952 · Fire · Cumbria · 4 fatalities
  A fire that broke out over a weekend in the North Shaft workings released carbon monoxide through the mine when the day shift restarted the air compressor, killing four miners — the worst single loss of life in Greenside's history.
• Wheal Jane acid mine water discharge, 1992
  13 January 1992 · Flooding / Inundation · Cornwall
  An estimated 50,000 m³ of acidic mine water burst from the flooding, abandoned Wheal Jane workings and turned the Carnon River and Fal estuary ochre-yellow — one of the most notorious mine-water pollution incidents in British history, and one still being actively treated more than three decades later.