At the Oaks Colliery near Barnsley in Yorkshire, a massive explosion and ignition of flammable gas raced through the underground galleries at around one o'clock in the afternoon. Hundreds of men were killed almost immediately and only six badly burned survivors made it to the surface. The following morning, dozens of volunteers descended to search for survivors but they themselves were decimated in a second huge explosion that killed 37 more miners. The total death toll over the two days came to at least 367 men and boys, and the Oaks Disaster remains to this day the deadliest recorded English mining disaster. (By John Osborne)
"Chronicle," The Annual Register: A Review of Public Events at Home and Abroard for the Year 1866 (London: F. & J. Rivington, 1867), 193-198.