FORTY-seven miners died in a fire 1,000ft underground at the Auchengeich Colliery at Chryston, Lanarkshire, on September 18, 1959.

After eight hours of rescue work a National Coal Board spokesman told reporters that “heavy loss of life must be expected”. One rescuer made a grim remark: “It’s hellish down there. things are very bad”. A fleet of ambulances had been waiting at the pithead for hours, alongside crowds of relatives, many of them in tears.

At 11pm, the NCB’s Scottish division chairman said every possible effort had been made to reach the area of the fire but that it was “our considered opinion that there is practically no hope of there being any survivors. An accumulation of fire-damp has made it necessary to withdraw the men engaged in fighting the underground fire and arrangements are in hand to flood a part of the roadway [below the level where the 47 men were] and so put out the fire” in order to avoid further loss of life.

A Glasgow Herald reporter wrote of Chryston: “This is a sad village tonight since news arrived that hope had been abandoned for the entombed men. People in small groups are moving away slowly from the pithead. Outside telephone kiosks, small groups of quiet women wait to telephone distant relatives”.

The 47 miners, aged between 20 and 62, died from asphyxia due to poisoning by carbon monoxide. They left 41 wives without husbands and 76 children without fathers; an appeal was launched to raise funds for them.

The disaster numbed mining communities across Scotland and beyond. A memorial today commemorates the loss of life. An official report said the tragedy might have been averted if regulations relating to the inspection of the underground fan in which the fire started had been observed.

The 40th anniversary of the tragedy

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