Six of history’s worst mine disasters

—1942: China’s northeast is the site of the world’s deadliest coal mine disaster when an accident kills 1,549 miners in Japanese-occupied Manchuria during World War II.

—1906: A dust explosion in a French mine kills 1,099 workers.

—1913: The worst mining disaster in British history was when 439 miners were killed in a gas explosion at the Senghenydd colliery in South Wales.

—1960: Coalbrook, South Africa, Clydesdale Colliery mine collapse kills 437.

—1962: Disaster at the Luisenthal coal mine in Volklingen, West Germany, kills 299.

—1927: 259 men and boys killed in one of the United States’ worst coal mine disasters, at the St. Paul Coal Co. mine, Cherry, Illinois.