THE FERENDALE COLLIERY EXPLOSION.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 12, Issue 914, 4 February 1868, Page 3

THE FERENDALE COLLIERY EXPLOSION.

(From the " Illustrated London News.") The Ferndale Colliery, the disastrous explosion at which supplies us with so sad an illustration, is situated in the Hhondda Valley, in the heart of the mining districts of Glamorganshire ; but it is not very accessible, being some five or six miles from a railway station, and in an extremely rugged country. The mine itself is comparatively a new one, having been, only recently opened ; but the works have been pushed on with great rapidity, until they have approached the famous Merthyr s.eam of coal. As usual, a kind of village or hamlet has sprung into existence near the mine, and, there, a population of some 800 souls is lodged in houses rudely built of wood, like American log-huts. The men engaged in the mine are said to have been about 300 in number, divided into two " shifts," or reliefs, one working by night and the other by day. On this basis of calculation, there would have been about 150' hands -in the pit at the moment of the explosion ; but the estimate appears to be carried higher than this, and sonic time may elapse, perhaps, before the truth can be known. It seems that the coal trade of the district has been rather depressed of late, and that several miners from neighbouring collieries had come to Ferndale for work, so that the number of hands engaged might be greater than usual. We are informed, too, that there was an underground stable attached to the colliery, and that thirty-five horses were employed in the work of the mine. Such was the Ferndale establishment at noon on Friday, the Bth inst. In the afternoon of that day, at about half-past one, an explosion of terrific force shook the Avholo mine, we may say, together. A volume of flame rushed up the shaft, with a cloud of ashes and stones, as in the eruption of a volcano. There was no need to tell the inhabitants of the valley the import of the sound. They rushed to the pit's mouth with a forecast of the truth only too certain, and in an incredibly short time workmen arrived from all parts of the district to the succour or rescue of their brethren. It was too late ; or rather, there had never been a moment at which human help could have been of any avail. The violence of the concussion had so shaken the ground that the earth fell in along the galleries and passages of the mine and precluded escape. It was like an explosion Th a tunnel, not only filling the place with a poisonous atmosphere, but bringing the roof in too. In such a case the first demand is for a guide well acquainted with the pit. Every mine has its ways, and its turns, and its workings, like an underground city, and the great object is to learn the plan. At Ferndale, the manager of the colliery, who was, above all others, competent to give this information, was known to have been in the pit at the time of the explosion, and search was immediately made for him, in order that his directions might be obtained for the rescue of others ; but though he was soon found, he was found quite dead. So the exploring parties had to work by instinct, or with what hints they could get, and, unhappily, every step of their progress showed the hopeless character of the calamity. The unfortunate victims were reached in batches of ton or twelve together, after distressing iutervals of suspense. The touching scene at the pit's mouth when the bodies reached the surface and were recognised ; the grief of the widows and children as their " breadwinners " were conveyed to desolate homes in the rude shells, may be imagined. For others there was a still longer wait of suspense. The working parties came upon a full of earth blocking the way, at which they toiled painfully with pick and shovel till the obstacle was removed. Behind it lay a group of corpses, charred or suffocated ; and then a little further on was another " fall," to be attacked in like manner, and with alike discovery. A delay of a day or two then ensued before any more bodies were removed ; and up to the present time many of those who are "missing " have yet to be accounted for.

A gentleman, writing from the neighbourhood of the colliery, says : — " I doubt if anj' previous accident recorded in the annals of coal-mining can have proved fatal to so large a proportion of the population of a district us this one. There are not more than two houses in the village that will not have to take in one or more dead bodies in the place-of the living man or boy who left them on Friday morning. I have been in some of the houses, and the scenes witnessed there were of a truly heartrending character. The first house I entered contained tlie body of a young married man. His wife went about the house moaning, with her first child (a mere baby) in her arms. The next cottage I entered had two families residing in it, both couples having been only recently married. One of the ■women sat scarce heeding her child (her firstborn) which lay on her lap, as she gave way to excessive grief for the young husband she had just lost. The other woman's excitement was terrible. Her husband is still in the pit, and the alternation of hope and of despair, as shown in her face and in her movements about the house, is terrible to witness. Many of the bodies which I have seen arc frightfully burnt about the face, the hair is singed, and the eyes look like holes filled with tar more than anything else. In one house I saw four men. laid on a coarse mattress on the

floor, and within four feet of the door. They were all much burnt. lv another cottage I saw the bodies of father and son ' laid out' together on a board, and covered with clean sheets. The lad was not more than thirteen years of age. He had not suffered much from fire, but had been suffocated by the after damp. There was a sweet smile on his face, and it was hard to believe that there had been anything like violence in his death. In another house I found that a lodger had been taken in dead, and the housewife told me that her husband and. two other lodgers were still in the pit. Of course she did not know whether they were dead or alive. There is one family from which the father and four sons have been taken by this dreadful calamity."