THE REDDING RESCUE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 8 October 1923, Page 7

THE REDDING RESCUE

SURVIVORS' EXPERIENCES.

(UNITED rKBSS* ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.)

aUST«AUA» , NEW ZEALAND CABLI ASSOCIATION.)

LONDON, sth October. The "Daily Chronicle's" special correspondent at Falkirk states that in cold, drizzling rain groups of miners stood waiting to-day near one of the shafts of the Redding colliery, where rescue operations were being continued with renewed vigour. High hopes were engendered by yesterday's miraculous recovery of five men from a living death. But they were damped by to-day's recovery of the bodies of "three victims who obviously had been dead for some days, apparently drowned. Nevertheless, there is still a chance that other entombed miners may be rescued alive. When yesterday's rescued miners first heard shots signifying that rescue parties were blasting, they counted them by throwing stones into a tin. They saved oil by burning only one lamp at a time, but eventually the oil gave out. and the men were left in complete darkness. One of the rescued men said: "We were not worried about hunger, but were anxious to get into touch with the rescuers and escape. Once water rose to our waiets, but we groped our way to higher workings. T Our clothing was soaked, but we dried if as best we could. After the lights failed out tobacco gave out, and we sought solace by chewing remnants of tobacco from onr pipes. We even chewed match sticks, not through hunger, but to occupy ourselves. We also prayed." As a minister offered thanks in one of the' rescued men's homes,. the miner said: "We prayed too. We thought it was the usual thing to do. We were facing death, and knew it." 3ohn Miller, 25 years of age, who has a wife and young baby, and who was one of the rescued, said it was an awful time of anxiety and misery. Darkness and the long silence were terrible to bear. "We kept ourselves warm by huddling together, but owing to the slate floor only the upper parts of our bodies remained warm."