78 Miners Trapped In Raging Fire

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31843, 22 November 1968, Page 11

78 Miners Trapped In Raging Fire

N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright>

FARMINGTON (West Virginia), November 21. Walls of flame raged through the underground tomb of 78 coalminers in Farmington today as rescue teams waited helplessly on the surface.

Hope ran out last night for the men trapped 600 ft below ground after two fresh explosions ripped through the Mountaineer Coal Company mine. The miners were trapped yesterday when a string of explosions and fires rocked

the mine, turning it into a i raging inferno which even!) melted temperature indica-'s tors lowered from the surface. i More than 18 hours after i disaster struck early yester- < day. mine officials said Hames I

and gales of searing hot airWere gushing through the; 'shafts. They said the trapped min-' ers’ sole chance of survival, was to build barricades of coal and machinery to seal themselves into an under-1 'ground chamber left unscathed by the fire. A spokesman for the mine owners said the latest explosions last night showed the fire was still too hot for rescue teams to go below. Ninety-nine miners were Working on the midnight to 8| a.m. shift in the seven-mile, complex of tunnels and chant-1 'bers w-hen the first explosion! came just before 6 a.m. yesterday. Twenty-one scrambled clear of the fires started by the blasts, which were believed to have been caused I ■by accumulated methane gas and coal dust. Thirteen men walked away ‘from the blazing mine and, 'another eight were rescued! I by a bucket lowered down al l subsidiary shaft. But Sheriff Robert Tennant'

jsaid of those left behind: "There is very little hope. . .. jit is very grim and very doubtful."