Disaster Lists

There is much debate around what constitutes a 'Disaster'. Some records state that the death toll must be 5 or more whereas others state 10 or more. In the list below I make no such distinction, for the relatives of the deceased 1 death was a disaster!

When two figures are shown for the Death Toll this indicates that the total has been reported by more than one source and both figures are shown. The main source of this information is the book "Great Pit Disasters" by Helen & Baron Duckham (ISBN 0 7153 5717 4) with additional validations from sites including the Durham Mining Museum, Northern Mines Research Society and North Staffordshire Coalfield. The list does not claim to be exhaustive and if you know of others, or spot any errors, please contact me and I will add/amend/rectify the data.

Where possible entries have a link to more information about the disaster and some of these may take you to other web sites, marked with (es).