Explosion disasters

Firedamp, coal dust or blasting explosions underground.

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26 disasters in the 1890s, of 502.

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
Blenkinsopp Colliery gunpowder explosion, 1890 On 6 March 1890 two stonemen were killed by an explosion of gunpowder at Blenkinsopp Colliery, near Greenhead in Northumberland.	6 March 1890	Explosion	Northumberland	2
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
Apedale Colliery Sladderhill No. 3 Pit explosion, 1891 During the afternoon shift of 2 April 1891 a blown-out shot of gelatine dynamite fired gas in the Bullhurst seam of the Sladderhill No. 3 Pit, Apedale, and coal dust carried the explosion through the district. Eleven died, most of them boys and young men.	1891	Explosion	Staffordshire	11
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
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
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
Lea Green Colliery shaft sinking explosion, 1893 At 4 a.m. on 14 October 1893 a naked candle fell from the side of a shaft being sunk at Lea Green Colliery and ignited an accumulation of gas, killing the sinker Evan Jones and badly burning seven others. The inquest criticised the sinking operations, the Inspector prosecuted the company and the manager, and the magistrates cleared both.	14 October 1893	Explosion	Lancashire	1
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
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
Aldridge Colliery firedamp explosion On 1 August 1895 an explosion of firedamp that had seeped from old workings killed two stallmen at Aldridge Colliery, in the South Staffordshire coalfield.	1 August 1895	Explosion	Staffordshire	2
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
Blackwell A Winning Colliery explosion, 1895 At about four o'clock on the morning of Monday 11 November 1895 an explosion ran through the main haulage road of the Low Main seam at Blackwell A Winning Colliery, near Alfreton. Seven of the 23 men on the Sunday night repair shift were killed. A shot of gunpowder fired to remove a projection in the roadway had raised and ignited the coal dust.	11 November 1895	Explosion	Derbyshire	7
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
Peckfield Colliery explosion, 1896 At 7.15 on the morning of 30 April 1896 a candle fired gas from a small roof fall at Peckfield Colliery, Micklefield, and coal dust carried the explosion through the Beeston Bed workings. Sixty-three of the 105 men and boys in the pit died, most of them trapped by falls and poisoned by afterdamp, with nineteen of the twenty-three pit ponies.	1896	Explosion	West Yorkshire	63
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
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
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
Sharlston Colliery powder explosion, 1898 On 8 December 1898 an explosion of powder while a shot was being fired at Sharlston Colliery, near Wakefield, fatally injured two colliers.	8 December 1898	Explosion	West Yorkshire	2
Benarty Pit firedamp explosion, 1899 Early on Monday 22 May 1899 firedamp exploded in a heading of Benarty Pit, near Kelty, where two men had been repairing a roadway overnight. Joseph Hamilton was killed outright and Michael Casey died within a day; the fireman James Morton, his leg broken, crawled a hundred yards towards safety.	22 May 1899	Explosion	Fife	2
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