EIGHTY-ONE miners and two rescue workers who lost their lives in the worst pit disaster since the war were honoured by an emotional North-East community last night.

Against a backdrop of the North Sea, Easington Colliery's young and old stood side by side to mark the 50th anniversary of the grim day when so many men lost their lives in the Duck Bill district of the Five Quarter seam.

It was just after dawn on May 29, 1951, as men from the foreshift were preparing to take over from the nightshift workers that an explosion ripped through the seam killing all 81 men trapped in its wake.

All traces of the pit have now gone, and in its place stands a Memorial Garden - a permanent tribute not only to the 83 who lost their lives half a century ago, but to the other 70 men who died toiling deep in Easington Colliery's network of coal seams over the years.

As Easington Colliery Band played a tune written especially for the occasion, the £100,000 garden with its pitwheel centrepiece was officially opened.

The chairman of the parish council, Alan Burnip, cut the ribbon on commissioned ornamental gates and the mine's lodge secretary, Alan Cummings, described the words on the colliery banner - We Remember Always - as a fitting epitaph.

Former miners, along with relatives and friends of those who died, then formed ranks behind the band for a sombre walk to the village's Church of Ascension where a special service was held.

Finally, under darkening skies, hundreds of people gathered in the cemetery where 73 of the dead miners are buried in neat rows of graves.

The Bishop of Durham, the Right Reverend Michael Turnbull, said prayers, while a Union Flag fluttered at half-mast.

Four pit lamp sculptures and symbolic crossed picks were unveiled before family members placed roses on every grave.