MineArchiveDisasters
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.
35 disasters in the 1930s, of 505.
| Disaster | Date | Type | Region | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wath Main Colliery explosions, 1930 Two explosions in the Billingley Drift District of Wath Main Colliery on 24 February 1930 killed seven men and injured three more, after a fall of roof broke a miner's flame lamp in an area an inspector's ventilation order had not, in fact, been carried out. |
24 February 1930 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 7 |
| Allerton Bywater Colliery explosion, 1930 At about half past nine on the morning of Monday 10 March 1930, a deputy at Allerton Bywater Colliery fired his tenth shot of the shift into a place where firedamp had gathered in explosive proportions. The explosion, worsened by coal dust, killed five men and a pit pony. The inquest found no negligence, but noted that the face had not been thoroughly treated with inert dust and that the shot-firing dynamo in use should not have been. |
10 March 1930 | Explosion | West Yorkshire | 5 |
| Auchinraith Colliery explosion A shot fired in the Black Band section of No. 1 pit ignited firedamp on a Saturday morning. Five men were killed outright, a sixth died the next day, and nine more were burned. Fifteen men had been at work in the section; the rest of the pit knew nothing until afterwards. |
30 August 1930 | Explosion | South Lanarkshire | 6 |
| Grove Pit Disaster, 1930 An underground gas explosion at Grove Colliery, beneath Brownhills Common, killed fourteen miners — most from carbon monoxide poisoning as they tried to escape rather than from the blast itself. |
1 October 1930 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 14 |
| Moorgreen Colliery Man-riding Accident, 1930 A train of haulage trams carrying about 150 men ran away down an incline at Moorgreen, killing Thomas Bilbie and injuring about thirty-six others, six of them critically. |
6 November 1930 | Haulage / Transport | Nottinghamshire | 1 |
| Houghton Main Colliery explosion, 1930 A firedamp explosion during ripping operations at Houghton Main Colliery killed seven men in December 1930, after a deputy fired a fourth shot hole despite reportedly detecting a break in the coal that should have prompted a check for gas. |
12 December 1930 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 7 |
| Auchengeich Colliery explosion, 1931 An explosion tore through the night shift in No. 2 Pit — the Round Pit — at Auchengeich Colliery in the early hours of 22 January 1931. Five men were killed outright and a sixth died the next day. Five others who had escaped unhurt went straight back in to look for them and were themselves overcome by gas. |
22 January 1931 | Explosion | North Lanarkshire | 6 |
| Plas Power Colliery Roof Fall, 1931 Three men on a Saturday afternoon repairing shift at Plas Power Colliery were buried instantly by a fall of roof estimated at 230 tons as they prepared to set a girder in extremely wet ground; it took a rescue party, one of them the father of a dead man, about twelve hours to reach the bodies. |
24 January 1931 | Collapse / Roof Fall | Wrexham | 3 |
| Haig Colliery explosion, 1931 A firedamp explosion in the Main Band seam, over two miles underground at Haig Colliery, killed 27 miners and injured 13 more on the evening of 29 January 1931. |
29 January 1931 | Explosion | Cumbria | 27 |
| Bowhill Colliery disaster, 1931 A firedamp explosion and the afterdamp that followed it killed ten men working in the Dunfermline Splint seam at Bowhill Colliery, Cardenden, on 31 October 1931 — one of the worst disasters in the history of the Fife coalfield. |
31 October 1931 | Explosion | Fife | 10 |
| Bentley Colliery explosion, 1931 A firedamp explosion in the North-East District of Bentley Colliery's Barnsley seam killed 45 men and boys on the evening of 20 November 1931, most likely ignited by a gob fire smouldering in the mine's old workings; the rescue that followed brought eight Edward Medals. |
20 November 1931 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 45 |
| Frickley Colliery gassing, 1931 Five deputies were overcome by carbon monoxide and died while reopening Frickley Colliery after its Christmas shutdown on 28 December 1931, in what became remembered locally as the darkest single day in the colliery's history. |
28 December 1931 | Gas / Asphyxiation | South Yorkshire | 5 |
| Glamorgan Colliery explosion, 1932 A gas explosion in the Pentre seam at Glamorgan Colliery, Llwynypia, killed eleven men, including two members of the rescue party. |
25 January 1932 | Explosion | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 11 |
| Mawstone Mine Disaster A firedamp explosion at Mawstone Mine, Youlgreave, killed five miners working on a ventilation fan; three more men died attempting a rescue without breathing apparatus, bringing the toll to eight and closing the mine for good. |
23 May 1932 | Explosion | Derbyshire | 8 |
| Bickershaw Colliery shaft accident, 1932 An overwound cage carrying 20 men plunged through the bottom of Bickershaw's No.3 shaft into a water-filled sump on 10 October 1932, drowning 19 of them in one of British mining's worst shaft accidents. |
10 October 1932 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Greater Manchester | 19 |
| Garswood Hall No. 9 Colliery explosion, 1932 Twenty-seven people were killed at Garswood Hall No. 9 Colliery, near Wigan, on 12 November 1932 in an explosion of firedamp which the Durham Mining Museum records as ignited by an electric spark. The inquiry that followed was thorough: its report works through the colliery's ventilation, shotfiring, stonedusting and lighting, the story of the explosion and the rescue, a damaged safety lamp and the electric signalling circuits, before reaching its conclusions and listing the victims and their injuries. |
12 November 1932 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 27 |
| Cardowan Colliery explosion, 1932 A firedamp explosion, triggered when a shot was fired into coal already loosened by an earlier shot, killed 11 men at Cardowan Colliery's dip side face on 16 November 1932. |
16 November 1932 | Explosion | North Lanarkshire | 11 |
| Glencraig Colliery Haulage Accident 1933 A Glencraig repairer named English was crushed to death by a rake of haulage hutches in 1933 while trying to escape unexpectedly restarted machinery — an accident whose 1937 House of Lords ruling, Wilsons & Clyde Coal Co Ltd v English, established the employer's non-delegable duty to provide a safe system of work, still a foundational principle of UK employers'-liability law. |
1933 | Haulage / Transport | Fife | 1 |
| West Cannock No. 5 Colliery Explosion (1933) An explosion in the Shallow Seam at West Cannock No. 5 Colliery, Hednesford, killed several miners on 16 May 1933 -- sources disagree on the exact toll. |
16 May 1933 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 5 |
| Brynamman Colliery Inrush, 1933 Water broke into a slant at Brynamman Colliery, trapping miners in the dark and flooding the roadway out. Two colliers, Thomas Thomas and Daff Davies, led four men and seven boys aged fourteen to sixteen to safety, Thomas going back for a group still trapped and coming out last. He received the Edward Medal, later exchanged for the George Cross. |
21 September 1933 | Flooding / Inundation | Carmarthenshire | 0 |
| Grassmoor Colliery Explosion, 1933 Firedamp exploded on a ninety-yard conveyor face in the Deep Hard seam at Grassmoor's No. 8 pit just before two on a Sunday morning, killing fourteen of the eighteen men at work there. The source of ignition was never established, an electric cap-lamp headpiece being the likeliest suggestion, and a public inquiry was held under the Coal Mines Act. |
19 November 1933 | Explosion | Derbyshire | 14 |
| Bilsthorpe Colliery Explosions (1934) Two separate firedamp explosions three hours apart in the North West No. 6 district killed nine men and injured a further forty. |
26 July 1934 | Explosion | Nottinghamshire | 9 |
| Rosehall Colliery explosion, 1934 At about two o'clock on the morning of 14 August 1934 firedamp exploded in the Blair section of the main coal seam in No. 10 pit, Rosehall Colliery, where nine men were coal-cutting on the night shift. Six were terribly burned; five of them died in Glasgow Royal Infirmary over the following week. Their workmates carried them half a mile to the shaft through afterdamp before the Coatbridge rescue brigade arrived. A fatal accident inquiry followed, and in March 1935 the acting manager was fined for failing to provide two means of egress and for not reporting an earlier ignition of gas. |
14 August 1934 | Explosion | North Lanarkshire | 5 |
| Gresford Colliery explosion, 1934 An explosion in the Dennis section of Gresford Colliery's Main seam killed 261 miners in the early hours of 22 September 1934, with three more men dying in the rescue effort and a further worker killed in a subsequent explosion — 266 deaths in total, making it one of the worst disasters in British mining history. A subsequent government inquiry found widespread falsification of ventilation records and serious management failings, though prosecutions resulted only in a conviction for inadequate record-keeping. |
22 September 1934 | Explosion | Wrexham | 266 |
| South Kirkby Colliery explosion, 1935 A firedamp explosion in the Barnsley Seam at South Kirkby Colliery killed 10 men in August 1935; a second explosion during the rescue effort itself burned five more, including a rescue-brigade officer who later died of his injuries. |
28 August 1935 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 10 |
| Great Mountain Colliery outburst, 1935 An outburst of fine coal and methane at Great Mountain Colliery, Tumble, on 31 October 1935 killed two miners, Edgar Owen Collins and Llewellyn Evans: the first of the pit's two fatal outbursts among 37 recorded between 1913 and 1959. |
31 October 1935 | Gas / Asphyxiation | Carmarthenshire | 2 |
| Bardykes Colliery Roof Fall, 1936 A very large fall of roof in the loading gate of a conveyor run in the Splint Seam at Bardykes Colliery killed five men and a pony on the evening of Saturday 21 March 1936. |
21 March 1936 | Collapse / Roof Fall | South Lanarkshire | 5 |
| Loveston Colliery Inrush On the morning of 26 May 1936 water burst into the workings of Loveston Colliery, a small anthracite slant near Jeffreyston in south Pembrokeshire, from old workings above and to the rise of which no plans existed. Twenty men were underground, several of them crawling in a drift only four feet high. Thirteen got out, some by seizing an iron haulage rope as the water rose over their heads and others through an airshaft. Seven were drowned. One of them, Joseph Phillips, had already reached safety and turned back for his younger brother Ernest; both died. The water rose 150 yards up the 390-yard slant and could not be held. The colliery closed the following July. |
26 May 1936 | Flooding / Inundation | Pembrokeshire | 7 |
| Wharncliffe Woodmoor Colliery explosion, 1936 At about half past three on the morning of Thursday 6 August 1936 an explosion in the Lidgett seam at Wharncliffe Woodmoor Colliery near Barnsley trapped fifty-eight men. One was brought out alive and rushed to hospital; the rest died, most of them in the gas that swept the workings after the blast. It was the worst mining disaster in South Yorkshire, and the last of that scale in the county. A memorial with half a pulley wheel was dedicated in Athersley Memorial Park in 1979 and unveiled by Arthur Scargill. |
6 August 1936 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 58 |
| Markham Colliery explosion, 1937 A firedamp explosion at Markham Colliery, ignited by a faulty electrical coal-cutter after a roof break released trapped gas, killed 9 men by carbon monoxide poisoning on 21 January 1937. |
21 January 1937 | Explosion | Derbyshire | 9 |
| Holditch Colliery disaster, 1937 A fire that began at a coal-cutting machine on the Four Feet face at Holditch Colliery, Chesterton, at about a quarter to six on the morning of 2 July 1937, and the eight explosions that followed it. Thirty men died and eight were injured. Almost all of them were killed by the last explosion, more than four hours after the fire started, while building stoppings in a position chosen against the manager’s advice in order to save the coal seam. The dead included two of His Majesty’s Inspectors of Mines, the colliery’s joint managing director, the under-manager and four members of the Hanley Rescue Brigade. |
2 July 1937 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 30 |
| Britannia Colliery compressed-air main explosion, 1938 On 10 April 1938 the main compressed-air pipe supplying Powell Duffryn's Rhymney Valley collieries burst while three men were repairing a joint beside Britannia Colliery, Pengam. The foreman boilermaker John Hammersley and the welder Roland Bond were killed outright and the fitter Frank Jones was seriously injured. |
10 April 1938 | Machinery | Caerphilly | 2 |
| Markham Colliery explosion, 1938 Runaway tubs colliding with steel roof supports dislodged a damaged electrical cable at Markham Colliery's Blackshale Pit, sparking a coal-dust explosion that killed 79 men on the night of 9-10 May 1938 — the worst of the colliery's three disasters. |
10 May 1938 | Explosion | Derbyshire | 79 |
| Astley Green Colliery explosion, 1939 A firedamp explosion struck Astley Green Colliery in the early hours of 7 June 1939 while men fought an underground fire over a mile from the pit bottom, killing five men including the pit manager and injuring four more; mines rescue teams were themselves driven back by further explosions. |
7 June 1939 | Explosion | Greater Manchester | 5 |
| Valleyfield Colliery explosion, 1939 An explosion in Dodd's Heading at Valleyfield Colliery on the night of 28 October 1939 killed 35 men and travelled more than 1,500 yards through the workings. The inquiry found it began as an ignition of firedamp during shot firing, and was carried by coal dust that should not have been there. |
28 October 1939 | Explosion | Fife | 35 |