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.

20 disasters in the 1950s, of 505.

Disaster	Date	Type	Region	Fatalities
Knockshinnoch Castle Colliery Inrush A sudden inrush of liquefied peat and moss flooded Knockshinnoch Castle Colliery on the evening of 7 September 1950, trapping 129 miners underground; 116 were led to safety over the following three days in one of the most dramatic rescues in British mining history, but 13 died.	7 September 1950	Flooding / Inundation	East Ayrshire	13
Creswell Colliery fire, 1950 A conveyor-belt fire at a transfer point in Creswell Colliery's High Hazel seam killed 80 men by carbon monoxide poisoning on 26 September 1950, after fire cut off the only intake route and toxic smoke filled the sole usable return airway — one of the worst British coal-mining disasters of the post-war era.	26 September 1950	Fire	Derbyshire	80
Easington Colliery explosion, 1951 An underground explosion in the Fifth ('Duckbill') district of Easington Colliery killed 81 miners outright, with two rescue workers later dying from the effects of afterdamp — one of the worst British colliery disasters of the 20th century.	29 May 1951	Explosion	County Durham	83
Eppleton Colliery Explosion, 1951 An explosion at Eppleton Colliery on 6 July 1951 killed nine men. Firedamp was ignited by the defective master control box of a Joy loader — a mechanical coal-loading machine — and the flame was carried on by coal dust. The Mines Inspector reported on it.	6 July 1951	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	9
Weetslade Colliery Explosion At 6.45 a.m. on Monday 1 October 1951 an explosion of firedamp swept the 3rd East District of the Bensham Seam at Weetslade Colliery, killing the deputy Thomas Whitney and the four men of his pumping and repair shift. The district had been gassed out for five days after flooding from old workings above wrecked its return airway and the manager short-circuited the ventilation to keep a pump running. Recovering the bodies took until November 1952 and the investigation until April 1953, held up first by rising water and then by the discovery of an explosive hydrogen-methane mixture given off by broken shuttle-car batteries, which forced the district to be deliberately flooded. The inquiry could not fix a definite cause, but found the only possible source of ignition to be an arc on the battery of a shuttle car the men had been using to move a fan.	1 October 1951	Explosion	Tyne and Wear	5
Point of Ayr Colliery shaft-sinking accident, 1952 Six men employed by a civil engineering contractor were killed on 4 July 1952 while sinking a new shaft at Point of Ayr Colliery.	4 July 1952	Winding / Shaft Accident	Flintshire	6
Greenside Mine fire, 1952 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.	7 July 1952	Fire	Cumbria	4
Glyncorrwg Colliery Explosion On the morning of 13 January 1954 an explosion ran along the Panzer Face in the Six Feet Seam at Glyncorrwg Colliery. Of the 32 men in its path, 17 were severely burned and seven slightly; eight escaped unhurt and nobody was killed. A second explosion followed before noon the same day, and a third within the sealed district on 16-17 January. The official inquiry traced the ignition to a light-alloy roof bar: its rusted steel wedge had become smeared with aluminium in ordinary use, and when a collier struck it with a sledgehammer the resulting spark fired the methane. The Inspector recommended that light-alloy bars be prohibited on longwall faces with open wastes where inflammable gas was likely.	13 January 1954	Explosion	Neath Port Talbot	0
Blaenhirwaun Colliery explosion, 1955 At about 1 p.m. on 6 September 1955 a sudden blower of firedamp from the roof of the Q face at Blaenhirwaun Colliery near Cross Hands was drawn through a small compressed-air fan ventilating a ripping lip, and sparks from its blades striking pieces of stone set it off. Flame swept the face and supply gate. Four men were killed and two more died of their burns later that month; thirteen were injured, nine badly burned.	6 September 1955	Explosion	Carmarthenshire	6
Walsall Wood Colliery Collapse (1956) A collapsed roof junction in the Charles Seam at Walsall Wood Colliery killed four men on 9 October 1956; a fifth was rescued alive after some seven hours trapped in the debris.	9 October 1956	Collapse / Roof Fall	Staffordshire	4
Lewis Merthyr Colliery explosion, 1956 A firedamp explosion at Lewis Merthyr Colliery on 22 November 1956 killed nine men and injured five more, after methane that had accumulated undetected in an unventilated roof-fall cavity was ignited by a falling stone striking a steel roof support.	22 November 1956	Explosion	Rhondda Cynon Taf	9
Chanters Colliery Explosion, 1957 Gas that had accumulated in Chanters Colliery's No. 2 drift after a roof fall five days earlier was ignited by an electrical arc when an electrician twisted a switch's cover plate onto a live busbar, killing eight men.	6 March 1957	Explosion	Greater Manchester	8
Barnburgh Main Colliery explosion, 1957 A firedamp explosion at 3pm on 26 June 1957 in the Newhill seam's North West 1 District at Barnburgh Main Colliery killed six men and injured fourteen others, after a shot-firing blast brought down a stone that damaged a power cable, producing a flash that ignited gas escaping from a break in the roof 73 yards away.	26 June 1957	Explosion	South Yorkshire	6
Kames Colliery Explosion, 1957 An explosion in the West Mine's Six Feet Section at Kames Colliery, Muirkirk, killed seventeen men after a match struck to light a cigarette ignited firedamp in an unventilated heading — the worst Scottish mining disaster in six years, in a pit that had been considered so safe it was used for experimental blasting work.	19 November 1957	Explosion	East Ayrshire	17
Risehow Colliery Explosion Two men died at Risehow Colliery, Flimby, on the evening of 26 November 1957 when firedamp was ignited in a cross-measure drift as a round of shots was fired. The gas came from a feeder in the roof about 30 yards back from the face and had been detected repeatedly through the shift whenever the auxiliary fan stopped; the ignition came not from the explosives, which never fired, but from a spark in shotfiring cables carrying nearly forty crude, bare joints between them. The Inspector concluded that both deaths would have been avoided had the two simple distance conditions attached to the exploder’s Approval been observed.	26 November 1957	Explosion	Cumbria	2
Great Mountain Colliery outburst, 1958 A sudden outburst of coal at Great Mountain Colliery, Tumble, on the evening of 25 February 1958 killed three men; two escaped. The pit suffered 37 outbursts of fine coal and methane between 1913 and 1959, and the accident was raised in the Commons two days later.	25 February 1958	Gas / Asphyxiation	Carmarthenshire	3
Brookhouse Colliery Overwind, 1958 An overwind in the No. 1 downcast shaft at Brookhouse Colliery injured 36 of the 44 men in a descending cage, after excessive winding speed went unchecked by faulty braking and an improperly equipped automatic safety device.	4 March 1958	Winding / Shaft Accident	South Yorkshire	0
Cae Glas Colliery Gassing, 1958 The mine's owner and two workmen were asphyxiated by gas while checking the water level in old, disused workings beyond the active faces at this small licensed drift mine.	24 September 1958	Gas / Asphyxiation	Merthyr Tydfil	3
Auchengeich Colliery fire, 1959 A fire in an underground booster fan filled the return airway of Auchengeich Colliery with carbon monoxide, and a man-riding train carrying 48 miners was sent into it. Forty-seven died; one man walked out. It remains the worst mining disaster in 20th-century Scotland.	18 September 1959	Fire	North Lanarkshire	47
Bickershaw Colliery explosion, 1959 Carbon monoxide from an explosion in an abandoned district of the Plodder Seam killed 5 men at Bickershaw Colliery on 10 October 1959.	10 October 1959	Explosion	Greater Manchester	5