Remembering the pit disaster victims - 75 years on from Easington's darkest day when more than 80 people died
‘Disaster struck just as the foreshift was going to relieve the night shift men’
The darkest episode in Easington Colliery’s long history is today remembered - 75 years on from the day that more than 80 people died in a pit explosion.
At around 4.45am on May 29, 1951, the blast brought tons of stone crashing down in the Duck Bill area of the Five Quarter Seam at Easington pit.
One and a half miles from the bottom of the shaft, disaster struck just as the foreshift was going to relieve the night shift men, the Sunderland Echo reported at the time.
Rescue teams rushed to East Durham from Houghton, Crook and Elswick. Hundreds of local people left their beds to stand in Abbott Street and wait for news, as soon as they heard the alarm bells of the ambulances as they raced to the colliery yard.
High ranking coal board officials hurried to Easington to wait for news from 900 feet below the surface. The men of Houghton Mines Rescue Station were the first to be called to the disaster as well as the Eppleton Colliery disaster in July the same year.
Later, it emerged that a spark from an underground coal-cutting machine hit iron pyrites and ignited a pocket of firedamp. Eighty one miners and two of the rescuers who rushed to the aid of the workers, lost their lives.
The disaster was considered one of the worst mining accidents in the region and led to national recommendations being made by the mining inspectorate, along with reconstruction of the pit
At the time, Easington Colliery employed 2,500 workers who would produce 18,000 tons of coal each week.
Just five years ago, at the 70th anniversary service of commemoration, County Cllr Dave Boyes said ‘every family’ in and around Easington had been impacted in some way by the ‘cataclysmic’ event.
A disaster fund set up for the relatives of the diseased raised £180,000 with donations sent from across the country and the world. A garden of rememberance was created in Easington cemetery and a memorial avenue was also created with a tree planted for each miner that lost their lives.
The disasters at both Easington and Eppleton were being remembered today with a memorial ceremony at Redhills in Durham, led by Rev Colin Jackson of Easington and Rev Jenny Portapryde of Eppleton.
Speeches, prayers, a roll call of those who died and a performance of the Miners Hymn Gresford were all being held today.