DISTRESS IN UTAH.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 25 March 1926, Page 8

DISTRESS IN UTAH.

a 'terrible snowslide. grim search for victims. Details of the disastrous avalanche at Utah in February last have come to hand bv in,ail. The little town of Bingham was the centre of the tragedy, and many lives were lost there when a. great snovvslide swept down. Thirty-one bodies were recovered by rescue workers, but owing to the terrible condition of their injuries, only five were identified, most of them being torn beyond recognition. At this stage between 65 and 70 still remained buried under the avalanche of snow. It was the worst winter disaster in the history of Utah. Without a moment’s notice the snowslide rushed down the mountain side crashing tons of snow, trees, huge rocks and timbers over a. dozen houses and burying 110 men, women and children under the wreckage in the Highland Boy mine district of Doty’s Gulch. Rescuers discovered Mr and Mrs J. M.- McDonald, proprietors of one of the boarding-houses that was demolished in the gigantic snowslide. The avalanche hit their house in such a manner as to tip the side, but the timbers fell in such a way that afforded protection to the McDonalds. Mrs McDonald .sustained a broken arm, but otherwise the couple were uninjured by their 14-hour imprisonment. A sister of Mr McDonald was killed instantly. The frantic search for bodies characterised the rescue work for several days, and it eventually gave way to a methodical hunt. The Highland Boy mine was closed by mine officials and the entire force was put to . work searching the ruins of Binglfam’s worst disaster. Fires, which broke out from numerous stoves in the buried residences in the narrow canyon street, were at last controlled, and mourning over the heavy loss of life was mingled later with ,a feeling of relief that the slide did not make its visitation an hour earlier, when a much greater list of fatalities would have resulted. Scores of children of school age were away at their classes when the slide started. All buildings that escaped the catastrophe undamaged were used as emergency hospitals, where the injured received treatment. The. story of the disaster was written in the faces of many of the miners who wore aiding in the rescue work. Scores left their families early on the fatal Wednesday morning only to return and find them dead or still buried under the slide which destroyed their homes. Under the great are lights the dead were laid out as they were removed, placed in ambulances and taken to a temporary morgue in Bingham proper. In the light of flickering fires Red Cross units gave first-aid to the injured before they were removed to the emergency hospital at Bingham. Openair kitchens threw an eerie light against the mountain shadows while workers and nurses were served with coffee .as they paused for a moment in their work.