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List of some of history’s worst mine disasters

By The Associated PressMay 14, 2014 GMT

AP10ThingsToSee - A man cries over the body of a miner being carried outside the coal mine in Soma, Turkey, Wednesday, May 14, 2014. Rescuers desperately raced against time to reach more than 200 miners still trapped underground Wednesday after an explosion and fire at the coal mine on Tuesday killed at least 238 workers. (AP Photo/Depo Photos)

A list of some 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.

—1909: 259 men and boys killed in one of the United States’ worst coal mine disasters, at the St. Paul Coal Co. mine, Cherry, Illinois.

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Compiled by news researcher Rhonda Shafner