MineArchiveFlooding / Inundation disasters
Inrush of water from old workings, a watercourse, or the sea.
See all disasters, including filtering by type.
72 disasters, in date order.
| Disaster | Date | Type | Region | Fatalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1810s | ||||
| Heaton Main Colliery inrush, 1815 On 3 May 1815 water from the flooded workings of the old Heaton Banks colliery broke into Heaton Main Colliery, near Newcastle, and closed the bottom of its only shaft. Seventy-five men and boys were trapped. The pit took nine months to drain, and the first body was not reached until January 1816. |
1815 | Flooding / Inundation | Tyne and Wear | 75 |
| Pentrefron Colliery flooding, 1819 Pentrefron Colliery at Coedpoeth was drowned out by water in September 1819; two men drowned, and a third, John Evans, was found alive in a roof cavity after twelve days, having lived on candles. |
27 September 1819 | Flooding / Inundation | Wrexham | 2 |
| 1830s | ||||
| Coalbrook Vale inrush, 1831 About midday on Friday 20 May 1831 water from an accumulation in old workings broke into a coal level of the Coalbrook Vale Iron Works, Monmouthshire, where fourteen colliers were at work. Three reached the pits; nine drowned, and one man was brought out alive after nearly 55 hours. |
20 May 1831 | Flooding / Inundation | Blaenau Gwent | 9 |
| Ladyshore Colliery inundation, 1835 On 10 July 1835 water from the River Croal broke into the Fletchers' Ladyshore Colliery at Little Lever, near Bolton, and drowned ten men and seven boys. |
1835 | Flooding / Inundation | Greater Manchester | 17 |
| Workington Colliery Inundation, 1837 On the evening of 28 July 1837 the sea burst into the workings of Workington Colliery, which had been driven 1,500 yards out under it with only about 150 feet of strata above. The Isabella, Union and Lady pits were submerged and 27 men and boys drowned, along with a comparable number of horses. The danger had been common talk in the town for months, and the owner had been written to about it. |
28 July 1837 | Flooding / Inundation | Cumbria | 27 |
| Thomas Chapel Colliery inrush, 1838 On 16 June 1838 colliers at Thomas Chapel, near Begelly in Pembrokeshire, cut into old workings full of water and six men and boys of Begelly were drowned, the worst accident in the local coalfield for a century. William Brace, who ran the pit, was prosecuted for manslaughter by the father of one of the dead, but the grand jury never sent the case to trial. |
16 June 1838 | Flooding / Inundation | Pembrokeshire | 6 |
| Huskar Pit Flooding, 1838 A thunderstorm burst a stream into the ventilation drift at Huskar Pit as 40 children tried to leave the mine, drowning 26 of them aged 7 to 17 — a disaster whose scale of child deaths directly shaped the Mines and Collieries Act 1842. |
4 July 1838 | Flooding / Inundation | South Yorkshire | 26 |
| Cinder Pits Inundation, 1838 After two days of incessant rain followed by snow, the sky over Waun Afon and the Coity darkened about midday on 28 November 1838 and discharged. The water inundated the works, nearly filled the valley, raised the river by many feet and burst over the embankment protecting the mouth of the Old Level at Blaenavon. Fifteen people in the workings were drowned, five of them children and two of them girls. It was Blaenavon's worst industrial accident. |
28 November 1838 | Flooding / Inundation | Torfaen | 15 |
| 1840s | ||||
| Garden Pit Inundation, Landshipping, 1844 On the afternoon of 14 February 1844 the Daucleddau broke into the Garden Pit at Landshipping, whose workings ran a quarter of a mile out beneath the estuary. Fifty-eight people were below; thirty-three were cut off at once and forty drowned. Eighteen were brought up in the coal buckets by putting the horses to a gallop on the whim. It remains the worst loss of life in Pembrokeshire mining. |
14 February 1844 | Flooding / Inundation | Pembrokeshire | 40 |
| East and North Wheal Rose Flooding Disaster A sudden, violent thunderstorm flooded East Wheal Rose and the neighbouring North Wheal Rose within minutes on 9 July 1846, drowning 39 miners in the deadliest single mining disaster in Cornwall's history. |
9 July 1846 | Flooding / Inundation | Cornwall | 39 |
| 1850s | ||||
| Gwendraeth Colliery Inundation At about ten o'clock on the night of Monday 10 May 1852, water burst into Daniel Watney's Gwendraeth Colliery at Pontyberem, Carmarthenshire, and drowned 26 of the 27 men and boys working the night shift. Only David Evans, at the shaft bottom when the water arrived, got out alive. The dead ranged in age from 10 to 50 and included several sets of brothers and at least one father and son. Recovery of the bodies took about eighteen months. The inquest returned accidental death by drowning from an inundation of unknown cause. |
10 May 1852 | Flooding / Inundation | Carmarthenshire | 26 |
| Thomas Chapel Colliery inrush, 1854 On 24 July 1854 an inrush of water drowned two colliers at Thomas Chapel Colliery, in Pembrokeshire. |
24 July 1854 | Flooding / Inundation | Pembrokeshire | 2 |
| Brynmally Colliery inrush, 1856 On Tuesday 30 September 1856 water from old workings broke into the No. 3 pit of Clayton and Darlington's Brynmally Colliery near Wrexham and drowned thirteen men. The first body was not reached for almost four weeks, and a pitman was killed during the pumping. |
1856 | Flooding / Inundation | Wrexham | 13 |
| Bryncoch Colliery inundation, 1859 A few hours into the shift on Wednesday 6 April 1859 water from a large area of old workings broke into the Main Colliery at Bryncoch, near Neath, with about eighty men and boys underground. More than fifty ran before the flood to the shaft; twenty-six did not get out, among them the overman, who was washed away trying to warn them. Pumping took five or six months, and the first body was not recovered until 23 September; four were never found. |
6 April 1859 | Flooding / Inundation | Neath Port Talbot | 26 |
| 1860s | ||||
| Tawd Vale Colliery sinking inrush, 1861 On 6 March 1861 a new shaft being sunk at Tawd Vale, in Skelmersdale, broke into old, long-abandoned workings full of water, and two sinkers, Robert Gill and Thomas Wilding, were killed. The inspector noted that the signs of water in the old works had been plain to see. |
6 March 1861 | Flooding / Inundation | Lancashire | 2 |
| Clay Cross Colliery inundation, 1861 About three in the afternoon of 11 June 1861 a Clay Cross miner saw water oozing in his stall. The warning went round by way of the deputy's son and reached the deputy two hours later, just as a torrent of black shale water from the old No. 1 workings broke in. Most men got out, the last swimming to the chain; twenty-three did not. The plans had shown a forty-yard barrier of coal that had in fact been worked away, and it took twenty-two days to reach the dead. |
11 June 1861 | Flooding / Inundation | Derbyshire | 23 |
| Bryngwiog Mine inrush, 1862 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. |
February 1862 | Flooding / Inundation | Flintshire | 16 |
| Bryngwiog Lead Mine Inundation, 1862 On Saturday 22 February 1862, water from old workings broke into the Bryngwiog lead mine on Halkyn Mountain in Flintshire and sixteen men were drowned. The dead came from villages scattered across the mountain — Moel-y-Crio, Lixwm, Rhewl, Rhesycae, Foel, Llaneurgain and Cilcen. |
22 February 1862 | Flooding / Inundation | Flintshire | 16 |
| Old Castle Colliery inrush, 1862 On 3 July 1862 water from the old workings of the adjacent Bres colliery broke into Old Castle Colliery, Llanelli, drowning four men in the Bushy seam and two in the Golden Vein above. Sixty or more escaped up a second shaft that had been sunk only shortly before, after the Hartley disaster. |
3 July 1862 | Flooding / Inundation | Carmarthenshire | 6 |
| Califat Colliery Inundation, 1863 In October 1863 water from the old workings of the Limby Hall Colliery burst into the Califat mine in Swannington, Leicestershire, and three men were killed: Thomas Bird, a pit deputy, Henry Clements and Jeremiah Rose. A memorial to them stands near the Alabama engine house complex on the mine site. |
October 1863 | Flooding / Inundation | Leicestershire | 3 |
| Swanwick Colliery inundation, 1863 An inrush of water at Swanwick Colliery, near Alfreton, killed two miners on 30 October 1863. |
30 October 1863 | Flooding / Inundation | Derbyshire | 2 |
| Leeswood Main (Flue Pit) Inundation, 1864 On the morning of 15 December 1864 water from the pit's own flooded old workings broke into the south side of the Flue Pit at Leeswood and drowned eight, among them Owen Jones, a boy of ten years and one month. A chartermaster, John Pierce, was killed during the recovery. The coroner's jury returned manslaughter against all three owners; the grand jury at the Flintshire Assizes found no bill, and the manager was fined five pounds for failing to bore ahead. |
15 December 1864 | Flooding / Inundation | Flintshire | 9 |
| 1870s | ||||
| Wheatley Hill Colliery inrush, 1871 In January 1871 a place being driven at Wheatley Hill Colliery to drain water from old Thornley workings holed unexpectedly into them, and the water drowned men working there. The coroner's jury found manslaughter against the chief viewer, resident viewer and overman, but the case collapsed at the Durham assizes. |
January 1871 | Flooding / Inundation | County Durham | 5 |
| Pelsall Hall Colliery inundation, 1872 A little before nine on Thursday 14 November 1872 a collier named Michael Cash, driving a heading at Pelsall Hall Colliery near Walsall, holed into old unrecorded workings full of water. Within minutes the water sealed the deep workings from the shaft. A few men escaped by clinging to the cage; twenty-two men and boys were cut off. When the pit was pumped out, ten were found together in a dry refuge, dead from chokedamp; one body was never recovered. |
14 November 1872 | Flooding / Inundation | West Midlands | 22 |
| Home Farm Colliery inundation, 1877 Eight days after a fall of roof in the rise workings of the Ell coal let water in from the sand and gravel above, the roof at Home Farm gave way altogether about six on the morning of 23 January 1877 and water, sand and mud rushed to the two shafts. For a quarter of an hour it ran down one shaft only, and more than sixty men escaped by the other; four colliers at the far end of the workings were cut off, and the stream poured down both shafts for ten hours until the mine was full. An eight-acre hollow opened by the river. The bodies were found in October and November 1878, after the pit was pumped out to resume working, in spaces the sand had not filled, with evidence the men had lived for some time. |
23 January 1877 | Flooding / Inundation | South Lanarkshire | 4 |
| Tynewydd Colliery inundation, 1877 At about four on the afternoon of 11 April 1877, as the men were about to leave, water from the flooded old workings of Cymmer Colliery broke through the boundary barrier into Tynewydd Colliery at Porth. Of fourteen men underground, two drowned at once and two more in a flooded heading; a fifth was killed by escaping compressed air as rescuers broke through to his group. Four men and a boy survived in an air pocket for more than nine days until they were reached through 38 yards of coal on 20 April, a rescue followed across Britain that brought the first Albert Medals awarded for gallantry on land. |
11 April 1877 | Flooding / Inundation | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 5 |
| 1880s | ||||
| Lillydale Colliery inrush and explosion, 1881 At about 10.45 a.m. on 3 May 1881 men driving headings towards flooded old workings at Enoch Perrins's Lillydale Colliery, near Hanley, tapped the water; it drove gas from the goaf onto naked lights and the gas exploded, killing nine. The jury found the manager guilty of manslaughter. |
3 May 1881 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 9 |
| Wharncliffe Carlton Colliery explosion, 1883 Just after midnight on 18 October 1883 gas exploded in the dip district of Wharncliffe Carlton Colliery, Barnsley, killing all 20 men on the night shift there. Fire followed, the pit was flooded to put it out, and only 17 bodies were recovered. |
18 October 1883 | Explosion | South Yorkshire | 20 |
| Mostyn Colliery Inundation, 1884 In July 1884 water from the Dee estuary broke into Mostyn Colliery in huge quantities. Pumping made no difference, because the water was coming in from the sea. Around two hundred men and boys lost their work, the colliery never reopened, and coal mining at Mostyn ended after some six centuries. |
July 1884 | Flooding / Inundation | Flintshire | 0 |
| Newbottle Colliery Margaret Pit inrush, 1885 On 3 June 1885 men holing in the Maudlin Seam of the Margaret Pit at Newbottle broke into the abandoned workings of the old Elizabeth Pit, releasing an inrush of water and noxious gas. The water flooded the workings, but it was the gas that killed: at least twelve men died before they could reach the shaft. |
3 June 1885 | Flooding / Inundation | Tyne and Wear | 12 |
| 1890s | ||||
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Tawd Vale Colliery inundation, 1897 On the night of Tuesday 30 November 1897 the River Tawd broke through a fall into old crop workings at Tawd Vale Colliery, Skelmersdale, and poured down through the old Twelve Feet workings and the shafts. The only two men below, a fireman and a hooker-on, were drowned. The colliery was abandoned. |
30 November 1897 | Flooding / Inundation | Lancashire | 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 |
| Glanmwrwg Colliery inrush, 1899 On the morning of Saturday 9 December 1899 a collier at Glanmwrwg Colliery, Llangennech, holed into old flooded workings. One of the two men caught at the deepest level was drowned; the other hung by one arm from a roof timber for nearly eleven hours until three of his fellow workmen swam in and pulled him out. |
9 December 1899 | Flooding / Inundation | Carmarthenshire | 1 |
| 1900s | ||||
| Elswick Colliery inrush, 1900 Water from unknown old workings broke into the Beaumont seam at South Elswick Colliery, Newcastle, early on 4 May 1900; about thirty men raced it to safety, but two hewers were drowned and not recovered for a month. |
4 May 1900 | Flooding / Inundation | Tyne and Wear | 2 |
| Glenavon Colliery inrush, 1900 Five colliers drowned when a heading being driven towards old, water-filled workings at Glenavon Colliery broke through on 24 October 1900 — the boring ahead of the face had underestimated a fault's throw and so missed the water it was meant to detect. |
24 October 1900 | Flooding / Inundation | Neath Port Talbot | 5 |
| Donibristle Colliery Moss Inrush At about twenty to two on the afternoon of 26 August 1901, soft peat began to flow into a heading in the East section of the Mynheer seam workings at Donibristle Colliery in west Fife. Most of the colliery ran beneath Mossmorran, a square mile of moss 450 feet above sea level, and two men probing upward with a rod to form an air shaft brought it down on themselves. Eight men died, smothered rather than drowned. Six were brought out alive, and the rescue was extraordinary in its own right: some three hundred volunteers came forward, and two of the rescuers were themselves trapped the following day and had to be got out in turn. |
26 August 1901 | Flooding / Inundation | Fife | 8 |
| Sacriston Colliery inrush, 1903 On Monday 16 November 1903 water broke into the 3rd West district of the Busty seam at Sacriston Colliery in County Durham and drowned two hewers in their working places. When the district was pumped out a third man, Robert Richardson, was found alive on the Friday, standing on his coal tub, where he had spent ninety-two hours in the dark surrounded by flood water. The jury found accidental drowning and no blame attaching to the management, and the Royal Humane Society gave silver medals to six of the colliery's officials. |
16 November 1903 | Flooding / Inundation | County Durham | 2 |
| Caradog Vale Colliery inundation, 1906 On the afternoon of Tuesday 26 June 1906 the face of a stall at Caradog Vale Colliery, a small level near Gilfach Goch, broke through into flooded old workings. Four colliers drowned, and two more survived six days trapped in the dark before rescuers reached them. The agent and manager were tried for manslaughter and acquitted. |
26 June 1906 | Flooding / Inundation | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 4 |
| Roachburn Colliery inrush, 1908 About noon on 28 January 1908 the face of a working driven up to the outcrop under Denton Fell gave way, and roughly 90,000 cubic yards of saturated peat, sand, clay and water poured into Roachburn Colliery near Hallbankgate. About 120 men were underground; all but three got out. Two of the three were officials who had gone back for the third. No body was recovered, so no inquest could be held, and the Home Office ordered a formal investigation instead. |
28 January 1908 | Flooding / Inundation | Cumbria | 3 |
| Brereton Colliery Inrush Water from a water-bearing stratum broke into the dip workings of the Coppice Pit at Brereton Collieries on 15 February 1908, drowning three men; a month later the bodies still lay entombed, management's efforts having gone entirely into keeping the main workings dry rather than recovering them. |
15 February 1908 | Flooding / Inundation | Staffordshire | 3 |
| Tareni Colliery Flood, 1909 Five miners drowned at Tareni Colliery when a working district broke into the adjoining, long-abandoned and waterlogged workings of the Ynysgeinon Pit. |
2 November 1909 | Flooding / Inundation | Neath Port Talbot | 5 |
| Caprington Colliery Inrush At 11.45 on the night of 10 December 1909 the roof of abandoned stoop-and-room workings in the Ell coal at Caprington Colliery, near Kilmarnock, gave way under a field that had flooded from the River Irvine. Water and gravel poured into the old workings, found their way to No. 41 pit and ran down the shaft, driving accumulated black damp in front of them. Of the sixteen people below ground, five escaped through the new air pit after raking out the ventilation furnace that blocked their way, and one was carried by the flood into the winding shaft and came out on top of the cage. The other ten drowned. The surface cover over the abandoned seam was about eighteen feet. |
10 December 1909 | Flooding / Inundation | East Ayrshire | 10 |
| 1910s | ||||
| Etna Colliery inrush, 1911 On Friday 24 March 1911 Evan Lewis, 44, and his son Thomas John, 14, were drowned when they tapped waterlogged old workings at the end of a heading in the Dulas Isaf (Dylas Isha) level, later Etna Colliery, at Gilfach Goch. Strikers from the Cambrian Combine dispute and soldiers stationed in the village joined the rescue. |
24 March 1911 | Flooding / Inundation | Rhondda Cynon Taf | 2 |
| Carr House Colliery inrush, 1913 Water from old flooded headings of the neighbouring Aldwarke Main Colliery burst into a narrow heading in the Parkgate seam at Car House Colliery, Rotherham, on 16 June 1913, drowning eight men. Boreholes had been drilled ahead of the face, but the plans were a few feet out and the barrier left was only three feet. |
16 June 1913 | Flooding / Inundation | South Yorkshire | 8 |
| Bromley Colliery Drowning Disaster (1913) A cotter pin worked loose in the winding gear, sending a cage 60 yards down the shaft; all three men aboard survived the fall itself but drowned in standing water before rescue. |
7 November 1913 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Somerset | 3 |
| Neilsland Colliery inrush, 1916 On 26 April 1916 washery sludge used to fill the old No. 3 Eddlewood shaft burst into the Ell Coal workings of John Watson Ltd's Neilsland Colliery, Hamilton, and buried five men. |
26 April 1916 | Flooding / Inundation | South Lanarkshire | 5 |
| 1920s | ||||
| East Pool Mine shaft collapse 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. |
1921 | Collapse / Roof Fall | Cornwall | 0 |
| Redding Colliery inrush, 1923 Water from long-abandoned 19th-century workings burst through a fault into Redding Colliery's No.23 pit before dawn on 25 September 1923, trapping 66 men underground and killing 40 of them in one of Scotland's worst mining disasters. |
25 September 1923 | Flooding / Inundation | Falkirk | 40 |
| Killan Colliery inundation, 1924 On the evening of 27 November 1924 water burst from abandoned workings into the Penlan district of Killan Colliery, near Dunvant on the western edge of Swansea, with sixty-seven people underground. Five were killed, the last two bodies not recovered until New Year's Day 1925. |
27 November 1924 | Flooding / Inundation | Swansea | 5 |
| Montagu View Pit disaster, 1925 An inrush at the View Pit of Montagu Colliery, Scotswood, on the morning of 30 March 1925. Three shots fired to straighten a coal face broke the last six inches of coal holding back the flooded workings of the Paradise Pit, abandoned in 1848, and water under about 80 pounds per square inch filled the workings. Of the 148 men and boys in the seam, 38 died: seventeen suffocated by blackdamp before the water reached them, the rest drowned. The public inquiry found that plans of the old workings existed but were not in the colliery's hands, and its recommendations reshaped the law on abandoned-mine plans. |
30 March 1925 | Flooding / Inundation | Tyne and Wear | 38 |
| Keppel Cove dam burst, 1927 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. |
night of 28–29 October 1927 | Flooding / Inundation | Cumbria | 0 |
| Flooding of the Adelaide Mine A sudden inrush of water flooded the Adelaide rock-salt mine at Marston overnight on 13 March 1928, ending rock-salt mining at Northwich for good and creating the subsidence lake now known as Adelaide Flash. |
13 March 1928 | Flooding / Inundation | Cheshire | 0 |
| Fleets Colliery inrush, 1929 On Friday 1 March 1929 a shot fired to hole into a disused working above Fleets No. 1 Pit, Tranent, released a torrent of water and black damp. George Johnstone, 27, waded back through water to his chin to warn fifty men working deeper in. All were brought out alive that afternoon. The company's officials were later prosecuted. |
1 March 1929 | Flooding / Inundation | East Lothian | 0 |
| 1930s | ||||
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 1940s | ||||
| Kennox Colliery Flood (1943) A sudden inrush of water flooded Kennox No. 7 mine, Douglas, trapping three men of one family; a thirteen-day national rescue effort ultimately failed to reach them alive. |
30 May 1943 | Flooding / Inundation | South Lanarkshire | 3 |
| RAF Fauld explosion, 1944 An accident during routine ordnance handling at the RAF's underground ammunition depot, built into a disused Staffordshire gypsum mine, detonated thousands of tonnes of stored explosives — the largest explosion in British history, killing at least 70 people and leaving a crater over 1,000 feet across. |
27 November 1944 | Explosion | Staffordshire | 70 |
| 1950s | ||||
| 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 |
| 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 the night shift of 4 July 1952 while sinking a new shaft at Point of Ayr Colliery under compressed air, when the air lock at the shaft top failed about 96 feet down and the workings flooded. |
4 July 1952 | Winding / Shaft Accident | Flintshire | 6 |
| 1970s | ||||
| Lofthouse Colliery disaster, 1973 About three million gallons of water burst into the South 9B district of Lofthouse Colliery from abandoned 19th-century workings in the early hours of 21 March 1973, killing seven men. Only one body was ever recovered. |
21 March 1973 | Flooding / Inundation | West Yorkshire | 7 |
| 1990s | ||||
| Wheal Jane acid mine water discharge, 1992 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. |
13 January 1992 | Flooding / Inundation | Cornwall | 0 |
| 2000s | ||||
| The Longannet Flooding On the evening of Saturday 23 March 2002, roadways near the bottom of the Castlehill section of the Longannet Complex flooded within minutes, most likely through or around an underground dam sealing off older, worked-out ground. Fifteen men underground at the time were evacuated safely; the mine never reopened, ending deep coal mining in Scotland. |
23 March 2002 | Flooding / Inundation | Fife | 0 |
| 2010s | ||||
| Gleision Colliery Flooding, 2011 Four miners drowned at the small drift mine Gleision Colliery when a controlled blast, intended to breach into disused flooded workings for ventilation, instead released around 650,000 gallons of water into the tunnel where seven men were working -- the worst mining disaster in Wales in three decades. |
15 September 2011 | Flooding / Inundation | Neath Port Talbot | 4 |
| Cavanacaw rockfall and water inrush, 2018 Over-charging with explosives brought down 150 tonnes of rock from an underground roadway roof at Cavanacaw Gold Mine, narrowly missing a worker, before the resulting unstable ground let surface water flood into the workings, further endangering the underground workforce. |
July 2018 | Collapse / Roof Fall | County Tyrone | 0 |