| Date: | 22nd August 1766 |
| Colliery: | Lambton |
| Cause: | Explosion |
| Lives Lost: | 6 |
A most melancholy accident happened at Lambton colliery, near Chester-le-Street. The workmen, to the number of one hundred, had just left work, and three masons with as many labourers had been let down, in order to build a partition, to secure the coals from taking fire by the lamp, when the said lamp being let down at the request of the masons, to rarefy the air, the latter in an instant took fire, with a terrible explosion, made its way up the pit, destroying men, horses, and all in its passage. The noise of the explosion was heard above three miles round, and the flash was as visible as a flash of lightning; the men below were driven by the force up through the shaft or great tube, like balls out of the mouth of a cannon, and everything that resisted shared the same fate. The neighbourhood being alarmed, collected itself in order to give assistance, but found only heads, arms, and legs, thrown out to a great distance from the mouth of the pit. The ground, for acres, was covered with timber, coals, &c. All the partitions, trap-doors, corves, wood props, and linings, were swept away, together with the engine for drawing up the coals, and all its apparatus.
| Source: | Local Records or Historical Register of Remarkable Events by John Sykes, Published in 1833 in two volumes |
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