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.

46 disasters in the 1890s, of 505.

Disaster	Date	Type	Region	Fatalities
Glyn Pits explosion and fire, 1890 In the early hours of Thursday 23 January 1890 gas exploded underground at the Glyn Pits near Pontypool. Most of the men struggled out, but five miners and nine horses were missing, and fires spread through the workings so fiercely that rescue was almost impossible. Five days later the colliery was deliberately flooded to put out the fire and save the pit, and the five bodies were never recovered. Within a fortnight some of the men who had gone to work at nearby Llanerch Colliery died in the explosion there.	23 January 1890	Explosion	Torfaen	5
Llanerch Colliery Explosion, 1890 On the morning of 6 February 1890 a gas explosion in Cook's slope at Llanerch Colliery, Abersychan, killed 176 men and boys — one of the worst disasters in the history of Welsh mining. Two months earlier the colliery's managing director had written that the pit was thoroughly well ventilated and safe to work with naked lights, declining the Inspector of Mines' advice to bring in closed safety lamps after an explosion the previous October.	6 February 1890	Explosion	Torfaen	176
Morfa Colliery explosion, 1890 Early on Tuesday 10 March 1890 an explosion tore through Morfa Colliery at Taibach, Port Talbot, a pit long known as gassy and as the pit of ghosts. Of about 250 men and boys below, some 100 walked out unaided; 87 died, including the manager William Barras and a rescuer, Daniel Brownsell. Five boys climbed out over a roof fall the next morning, and John Franks was found alive twelve hours further in. The jury found that shot firing had ignited a body of gas.	10 March 1890	Explosion	Neath Port Talbot	87
Wheldale Colliery fire, 1891 A fire broke out in the engine plane of Wheldale Colliery's Silkstone Pit on 8 December 1891, killing five men overcome by smoke and fumes while trying to escape; the mine was ultimately flooded to bring the fire under control.	8 December 1891	Fire	West Yorkshire	5
Ynysfeio Colliery runaway journey, 1892 At a quarter past three on the afternoon of 18 January 1892 the tail rope broke on a full journey of trams going down a steep incline at Ynysfeio Colliery, Treherbert. The journey ran wild to the bottom. Thomas Griffiths, the rider, and Gwillym Morgan, a collier riding in an empty tram in the middle of the full journey, were killed in the wreckage.	1892	Haulage / Transport	Rhondda Cynon Taf	2
Elliot Colliery Cage Fall Three men fell to their deaths at Elliot Colliery, New Tredegar, on 4 March 1892 when a bolt connecting the top of their cage snapped as they were being lowered down an 86-yard trial shaft, dropping the cage and its occupants to the bottom.	4 March 1892	Winding / Shaft Accident	Caerphilly	3
Nantymwyn dynamite explosion, 1892 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.	28 March 1892	Explosion	Carmarthenshire	2
Yniscedwyn Colliery runaway, 1892 At six in the evening of 24 August 1892 the night shift at Yniscedwyn Colliery was waiting to ride down the steep new drift in a journey of carriages held by a scotch. One of the men kicked the scotch away before the engine was manned, the journey ran away down the 1-in-3 incline, crashed into timbers and brought down the roof, killing six men and injuring three. The inquest held the dead man who started it responsible.	24 August 1892	Haulage / Transport	Powys	6
Hendreladais Colliery Man-Riding Accident, 1892 A haulage engine left unattended let man-riding carriages run out of control down the colliery's steep incline at the start of the night shift, killing six men and seriously injuring three more.	24 August 1892	Haulage / Transport	Powys	6
Park Slip Colliery explosion, 1892 An explosion of firedamp, its violence multiplied by coal dust, tore through Park Slip Colliery near Tondu on 26 August 1892, killing 112 of the men and boys underground — one of the worst single mining disasters in Welsh history.	26 August 1892	Explosion	Bridgend	112
Bamfurlong Colliery fire, 1892 Between 7.15 and 7.30 a.m. on 14 December 1892 a paraffin torch set fire to a timber-floored compressed-air engine house on the main intake of Bamfurlong Colliery, near Wigan, and the ventilating current carried the smoke into the workings. Seventy-three men escaped by the return airway, but sixteen men and boys tried to get out through the smoke and suffocated. The regular engine boy was ill and a boy of thirteen had been sent in his place.	14 December 1892	Fire	Greater Manchester	16
Wheal Owles flooding disaster Miners broke through into the flooded, long-abandoned workings of Wheal Drea, trapping and drowning twenty men and boys underground.	10 January 1893	Flooding / Inundation	Cornwall	20
Abercynon Colliery Sinking Accident, 1893 Eight sinkers were killed by a fall while the shafts of Abercynon Colliery — then the Dowlais Cardiff Colliery — were being sunk on 23 January 1893. A ninth man, David Jones, died a month later of injuries from the same fall.	23 January 1893	Collapse / Roof Fall	Rhondda Cynon Taf	8
Great Western Colliery Fire, 1893 An underground fire at the Great Western Colliery, Hopkinstown, on 11 April 1893 trapped around 200 men in the Four Feet seam east of the Hetty Pit. About 150 were brought out alive; 63 men and boys, aged between 14 and 61, died.	11 April 1893	Fire	Rhondda Cynon Taf	63
Foxes Bridge Colliery shaft accident Three shaftmen repairing a pump 150 yards down the Foxes Bridge shaft were killed when the bridle chains of the cage they were riding snapped and it fell; a fourth man saved himself by clutching the shaft guides.	28 May 1893	Winding / Shaft Accident	Gloucestershire	3
Herbertshire Colliery explosion, 1893 On the afternoon of 30 June 1893, an explosion of firedamp and coal dust in the Dook Section of Herbertshire No. 3 pit, Denny, killed two men and injured several more. A formal government inquiry, appointed personally by the Home Secretary H. H. Asquith, concluded after a two-day hearing and 29 witnesses that a safety lamp had been unlawfully opened, exposing a naked flame in ground where fine, dry coal dust turned a small gas ignition into a serious explosion.	30 June 1893	Explosion	Falkirk	2
Combs Colliery Explosion, 1893 A few minutes after noon on 4 July 1893, during the men's dinner hour, an explosion of firedamp ignited by a naked light tore through the Wheatley seam at Combs Pit, Thornhill. Of the 146 people underground, 139 died — forty-six of them under sixteen, and seven of those aged twelve. Most died not of the blast but of the afterdamp.	4 July 1893	Explosion	West Yorkshire	139
Featherstone Massacre During the national coal lockout of 1893, a crowd of over 2,000 gathered at Ackton Hall Colliery amid rumours that coal was being moved out to break the strike. After the Riot Act was read and the crowd failed to disperse, soldiers of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry opened fire; two bystanders, James Gibbs and James Arthur Duggan, were fatally wounded and died the next day. The event became known as the Featherstone Massacre, a landmark moment in British labour history.	7 September 1893	Other	West Yorkshire	2
Dolcoath Mine stope collapse 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.	20 September 1893	Collapse / Roof Fall	Cornwall	8
Camerton Colliery explosion Two men were killed by an underground explosion at Camerton New Pit. The cause was a mystery at first; it was eventually proved that shot-firing had ignited coal dust suspended in the pit’s atmosphere — one of the first three explosions in Britain attributed to coal dust alone, all of them in the Somerset field.	14 November 1893	Explosion	Somerset	2
Albion Colliery explosion, 1894 A firedamp and coal-dust explosion tore through Albion Colliery on 23 June 1894, killing 290 men and boys — the second-worst death toll of any British colliery disaster after Senghenydd in 1913.	23 June 1894	Explosion	Rhondda Cynon Taf	290
Home Farm Colliery shaft accident, 1894 At 9.20 on the night of 27 June 1894 three shaftmen at Home Farm Colliery, Larkhall, were on a scaffold hung from a crane rope in the shaft, repairing the slides below the Main Coal. Unable to lift the load in single power, the cranemen tried to shift the gearing with the scaffold still hanging, threw the crane out of gear, and the load ran away. The scaffold fell 39 fathoms and all three were killed. The Inspector blamed inexperience and a badly designed crane.	1894	Winding / Shaft Accident	South Lanarkshire	3
Diglake Colliery Inrush, 1895 At about 11.30 on the morning of Monday 14 January 1895, after a winter of deep snow and thaw, water from the flooded workings of the old Diglake pit, abandoned since about 1850, burst into the new Ten Feet workings of Diglake or Audley Colliery at Bignall End and poured down the dip through the mine, drowning 77 men and boys of the 240 or so underground. About 160 escaped through the Boyle's Hall shaft, many led out by the under-manager William Dodd and the collier John Boulton, who went back into the rising water again and again and were decorated for it. A dam of tubs and timber at the foot of the dip and the threat of further floods and gas forced the rescue to be abandoned within the week with only two bodies recovered. The inquiry could not show how the water got in, called it an unforeseen accident, and left the men where they lay; three skeletons were found in 1932-33 and the workings were sealed.	14 January 1895	Flooding / Inundation	Staffordshire	77
Conygre Pit explosion An explosion on the night maintenance shift at Lower Conygre, Timsbury, on 6 February 1895 killed seven men and four horses. Nine men were underground. The two who lived were working in a part of the pit ventilated from a different source, and the blast never reached them.	6 February 1895	Explosion	Somerset	7
Six Bells Colliery shaft-sinking accident, 1895 Four men sinking the shafts at Arael Griffin — later Six Bells Colliery — were killed on 9 February 1895 when they fell from the bowk carrying them down the shaft. Two more men died the same way before the sinking was finished.	9 February 1895	Winding / Shaft Accident	Blaenau Gwent	4
Snailbeach Mine winding-rope accident, 1895 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.	6 March 1895	Winding / Shaft Accident	Shropshire	7
Auchenharvie Colliery inrush, 1895 At about three in the afternoon on 2 August 1895, water burst out of old workings into the rise of Auchenharvie's No. 4 Pit and swept down the inclines to the shaft and on into the dook. Nine people drowned, four of them brothers and two of them children. Five more were entombed behind a blockage and dug out alive two days later.	2 August 1895	Flooding / Inundation	North Ayrshire	9
Abercynon Colliery Shaft Accident, 1895 Six sinkers were killed at Abercynon Colliery on 9 September 1895 when the bowk they were riding struck a projection in the shaft and they were precipitated to the bottom.	9 September 1895	Winding / Shaft Accident	Rhondda Cynon Taf	6
Tynybedw Colliery bowk accident, 1895 With the winding shaft at Tynybedw Colliery in Pentre out of action, the men were brought up the upcast shaft in a bowk, a barrel wound by a haulage engine. About eight in the evening of 9 September 1895 the bowk, carrying six colliers and a conductor, caught a byat supporting the Nine Feet landing and tipped over. The six fell 73 yards to the bottom of the shaft; the conductor clung to the chains and survived.	9 September 1895	Winding / Shaft Accident	Rhondda Cynon Taf	6
Wellington Pit explosion, Shakerley, 1895 On 1 October 1895 firedamp exploded in the Trencherbone seam of the Wellington Pit at Shakerley, Tyldesley, killing the five men trying to clear it: the manager, the undermanager, two firemen and a dataller. The inspector blamed a bonneted Clanny lamp whose gauze had become red hot.	1 October 1895	Explosion	Greater Manchester	5
Congo Pit flooding, 1895 At ten past one in the morning of 10 December 1895 the Emerald Pit in the townland of Congo flooded catastrophically and six men were killed. The colliery's head engineer had warned that old water-filled shafts lay nearby and that breaching one would be disastrous. That is exactly what happened.	10 December 1895	Flooding / Inundation	County Tyrone	6
Tylorstown Colliery explosion, 1896 An explosion swept Tylorstown's Nos. 6, 7 and 8 pits as the day shift descended on 28 January 1896, killing 57 men and boys, after a delayed shot fired into a gas-charged road ignited firedamp and coal dust through the dry workings.	28 January 1896	Explosion	Rhondda Cynon Taf	57
Brancepeth Colliery A Pit explosion, 1896 Twenty men and boys were killed in the A pit at Brancepeth Colliery, near Willington in County Durham, on 13 April 1896, by an explosion of coal dust which the Durham Mining Museum records as ignited by shot firing. The colliery, opened in 1840 and owned by Straker and Love, worked on until 1967.	13 April 1896	Explosion	County Durham	20
Duffryn Main Colliery explosion, 1896 On the morning of 4 August 1896 roof falls where pillars were being taken out in No. 1 pit of the Main Colliery at Bryncoch, near Neath, released a great volume of gas. The officials raised the alarm and some 175 men were drawn up within twenty minutes, but a fireman and four others went back to warn a father and his two sons working deep in the No. 2 South-East, and at about eleven the gas exploded at a partially protected Davy lamp. Seven died. The jury praised the rescuers, and the owners replaced the Davy lamps.	4 August 1896	Explosion	Neath Port Talbot	7
Hendreforgan Colliery Runaway Journey, 1896 Nine boys riding illicitly up a steep incline in an empty journey of trams were thrown back down when a drawbar broke between the fourth and fifth trams. Two were killed, a 17-year-old collier boy and a 13-year-old haulier, and the other seven were all injured.	15 August 1896	Haulage / Transport	Neath Port Talbot	2
River Level Colliery inrush, 1896 Water broke through from the abandoned, adjoining Ysguborwen colliery into the Gellydeg seam workings of River Level Colliery on 9 December 1896, drowning six men and boys; an inquiry found the barrier between the two collieries had been reduced to a few feet by unrecorded workings on the Ysguborwen side, and that the case for manslaughter against Ysguborwen's managers was strong but unlikely to secure a conviction.	9 December 1896	Flooding / Inundation	Rhondda Cynon Taf	6
Broadoak Colliery explosion, 1897 An explosion at Broadoak Colliery, Loughor, killed five men on the morning of 5 January 1897, after the night-shift fireman's own safety lamp was found to have been opened; a jury found no culpable negligence.	5 January 1897	Explosion	Swansea	5
Devon Colliery inundation Water that had gathered behind a dam in the Lower Five Feet seam burst through at about a quarter to six in the morning. Seven men were working at the level; six were drowned. The only survivor was found half conscious by the men coming on at six. The bodies were not recovered until the water had been pumped away, more than three weeks later.	26 March 1897	Flooding / Inundation	Clackmannanshire	6
East Hetton Colliery inrush, 1897 At half past three in the morning on 6 May 1897 water burst into East Hetton Colliery from old workings and drowned ten people. The first warning was water seeping from the face of a longwall in the Harvey seam a mile north of the shaft. The inspector reported that only a limited number of men were below at that hour, and that on a day shift the loss would have been far greater; the water was fought by throwing a demolished engine house, clay and lime into the old Cassop shaft and pumping from every available source.	6 May 1897	Flooding / Inundation	County Durham	10
Snaefell Mine disaster 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.	10 May 1897	Gas / Asphyxiation	Isle of Man	20
Gellyceidrim Colliery runaway journey, 1897 On 7 July 1897, as a journey of twelve loaded trams was being hauled up the slant at Gellyceidrim Colliery, Glanamman, the rope broke and the trams ran back down the incline. Two men walking up after their shift, the collier Rees Jenkins and John Lloyd, could not reach a manhole in time and were killed. A runaway after another broken rope had killed a thirteen-year-old door boy on the colliery's slant the year before.	7 July 1897	Haulage / Transport	Carmarthenshire	2
Auldhouseburn Colliery inundation, 1898 Men cross-cutting eastward in the Bankhead pit of Auldhouseburn Colliery holed into the flooded workings of the long-abandoned Crossflat pit on the morning of Friday 11 March 1898. The water rose twelve feet in the shaft and cut off nineteen men in the steep rise workings above the main roadway. Three who had been working near the roadway and had time to act on the warning were overwhelmed and drowned. The other sixteen were brought out alive the next morning after a night and a day underground, led by the fireman Robert Blyth, who stayed with them and then swam the flooded roadway neck-deep to ring the pit bell.	11 March 1898	Flooding / Inundation	East Ayrshire	3
Whitwick Colliery Fire, 1898 A gob fire in Whitwick Colliery's No. 5 Pit killed 35 men and boys overnight, the worst mining disaster in Leicestershire's history, leaving 27 widows and 84 children under 13 orphaned.	19 April 1898	Fire	Leicestershire	35
Annagher Pit fireball, 1898 Coal had been coming out of the new Annagher pit for barely a month when, shortly after one o'clock on 29 September 1898, gas ignited sixty metres down and engulfed four miners in a fireball. Three died. Two men who went back down after them were decorated for it, one with the Royal Humane Society's highest award.	29 September 1898	Explosion	County Tyrone	3
Brandon Colliery explosion, 1899 A powder shot fired by the deputy in broken pillar workings of the Brockwell seam at Brandon Colliery, County Durham, on 15 August 1899 ignited firedamp lying in an old headway. Two men were killed outright and four more, including the deputy, died of their burns over the next three days; four others were injured.	15 August 1899	Explosion	County Durham	6
Lluest Colliery Explosion, 1899 An explosion at Lluest Colliery at Pontyrhyl in the Garw Valley on 18 August 1899 killed nineteen men and boys. One of the dead had come from another part of the mine to help and was overcome by afterdamp. A Home Office report on the disaster was laid before the Commons that October. The colliery stopped producing three years later.	18 August 1899	Explosion	Bridgend	19