MANY DIE IN AN AVALANCHE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 5 (Supplement)

MANY DIE IN AN AVALANCHE.

ITALIAN MINERS CRUSHED IN A

SNOWSLIDE IN COLORADO,

A February 12 special, to trie * Denver Republican ' from Silver Plume Col., says : Two mighty avalanches combining into one swept down Cherokee gulch at 8 o'clock this morning, carrying away < a dozen or more mine buildings, cabins and machinery, and causing ' great loss of life and damage to mine • property. How many bodies lie in this great mass of snow and debris will not be known before spring. Bight bodies are'now at the Morgue, two more persons are known to be lost, and three have been taken out alive. The rescuing ' party .has only penetrated about fifteen feet into the mass of snow and wreckage, piled up at the foot of the gulch to the depth of seventy-five feet. The slide started in what is known as Curry City Gulch. It swept over the Dives Pelican tunnel-house,' carrying away the mine dumps and buildings and fO!ing the entire valley. As this slide reached the main gulch ' the snow in Swallow Hen-gulch on the opposite mountain broke away and rushed down to Cherokee gulch. Here i the two avalanches met and continued • their course toward the town. Just . back of Silver Plume in the main gulch was a settlement of Italian miners. Their cabins were directly in the path of destruction and were crushed like egg- ' shells Trees were torn up the roots, and gigantic boulders carried away like pebbles. It was all over in a minute. Not a vestige of the former ha^mlet remained to suggest the presence of nearly a .score of bodies under the snow. A high wind during the night loosened the snow. Day broke with a warm, sun. A capricious wind blew in the early hours, striking the snow with an impact that caused the mass to. tremble Miners going to the Dives Pelican mine remarked it. They. Had scarcely reached the entrance to the tunnel than the ■- whole mountain seemed to tremble. Before they could catch their breath it was on them. They were hurled far ■ Into the interior of the tunnel, and when 1 they regained the entrance they gazed on such a scene of desolation as they had . never witnessed before. The hamlet they had passed a few minutes before below the tunnel was " missing. Less than a minute they say transpired in the transaction. From 12,000 feet high the snow had hurled itself into the valley at the rate of ahundred -miles an hour. The bodies taken out were peaceful faces. Timbers | and rocks from the houses were crushed and, scattered, but the ■ bodies recovered were not disfigured. Silver Plume was drenched with ' powdered ice, and for an hour after the passage of the avalance snow continued to descend. On the sides of Cherokee gulcn, mining appurtenances that have withstood the storms of twenty years were razed until not a stick was left to denote what had been some of the finest plants in the state. The -Dives Pelican mine lost 70,000 dollars in | ore from bins, and eight shaft-houses with their equipment were cut off with , razor-like exactness, denoting the limits of the slide.