When Tony Banks was working deep below ground in Lofthouse Colliery on the morning of March 21, 1973, he felt a blast of cold air.

“We were cutting away in a seam about a yard high and all of a sudden, at about 2.15am, there was a sudden surge of wind,” he said.

“Everything went back to normal, but it was a strange feeling and we didn’t know what had happened until about 4.20am.”

The 30-year-old overman had no idea that his fellow miners in the seam above had cut into an abandoned mineshaft and released more than three million litres of stagnant water.

Tony Banks, former miner who was working on the morning of the Lofthouse Colliery disaster in 1973, is pictured by the Memorial to the disaster 50 years on since the tragic event. Picture taken by Yorkshire Post Photographer Simon Hulme 20th March 2023

A torrent of water, sludge and rocks ripped through the narrow tunnels, at the colliery near Wakefield. Seven men, who had been working around 750 ft below ground, were killed and only one body was recovered, in what is known as one of Britain’s worst mining disasters.

Mining historian Eddie Downes said: “The men were cutting coal in a very thin seam, of about 36 inches, so they were working on their hands and knees. They didn’t stand a chance.

“The men who were in the tunnels ran for their lives, while it came down like a tsunami.”

The miner whose body was found, Charles Cotton, told his son Terry to keep running and save himself before he was killed.

Rescue workers during a six-day rescue operation at Lofthouse Colliery, near Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, 22nd March 1973. Seven miners had been killed the previous day, when the excavation of a new coalface, too close to an abandoned, flooded 19th century mineshaft, caused an inrush of three million gallons of water. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Hundreds of people took part in the six-day rescue operation, and some of the more optimistic miners believed their friends may have survived.

They drilled down to try and find a pocket of fresh air, attempted to pump water out of the tunnels and brought in a specialist team of trained divers from Staffordshire.

But they soon realised it was too dangerous dive down into the murky water and the air in that seam was filled with methane and carbon dioxide.

“The whole colliery was involved in the rescue,” said Mr Downes. “Even the canteen ladies worked 24/7 providing food for the rescue brigades.

Rescue workers taking a break during a six-day rescue operation at Lofthouse Colliery, near Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, on March 22 in 1973.

“One of the rescue teams recovered Charles Cotton and they got a fair distance along the tunnels, but the conditions were absolutely horrendous.

“After six days, they had a meeting in the local cinema in Outwood and Sid Haigh, who was a well-known and respected miner, stood up at the front and said he didn't want any more men risking their lives to try and recover the body of his son, Alan. In his heart, he knew he was dead.”

Alan Haigh, 30, was the youngest miner who was killed. Mr Cotton, 49, Frederick Armitage, 41, Colin Barnaby, 36, Frank Billingham, 48, Sydney Brown, 36, Edward Finnegan, 40, also died.

“When they sealed the men in, nobody who worked at Lofthouse would do that job,” said Mr Banks, who is now 80. “They had to get contractors in to do it.

“When I think about those men, and look at their names on the memorial, I think about what I've done in my time over the last 50 years, with my family and everything else, and how they’ve missed so much.”

Mr Banks and Mr Downes marked the 50th anniversary of the tragedy with a series of memorial events in Wakefield.

Lofthouse Colliery: Victims remembered on 50th anniversary of the disaster