21 MEN ENTOMBED.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 15 April 1908, Page 8

21 MEN ENTOMBED.

GALLANT ATTEMPTS TO RESCUE THEM PROVE VAIN. TABBY KITTEN THE ONLY LIVING THING RESCUED. News by mail gives fuller particulars of the serious fire which broke out on March .3 -in Hamstead Colliery, about 'five miles from Birmingham. The attempts to rescue twenty-one men entombed in the mine proved hopeless. About half-past five the day shift of about fifty men came up and the night shift went down. About half an hour later smoke was seen issuing in dense .quantities from the ventilating outlet o£-Noc2 shaft. In response to the violent ringing ©f the bell in the engine-room, the cage was quickly brought -to the surface, and was found to contain five or six men. A little later a rescue party descended and tried to find some .trace of the missing men. This they found impossible owing to the dense smoke! After a time the cage containing a couple of safety lamps and an electric lamp was lowered, and then a live rat was put in and sent down .-to test the state of the air in the mine. About a quarter of an hour later the rat was brought up and found to be still " alive. ' ' The electric lamp was alight; but' the two safety lamps were extinguished. The electric lamp was again lowered on the top of the cage, and on the side a board was placed on which were chalked the words: "If you are alive knock at the bottom of the cage." A long period of suspense followed, but no sound whatever was heard. It was decided after more futile attempts to wait for the arrival of the special relief gangs which had been wired for to Barnsley and Normanton. The friends and relatives of the missing miners, numbering 3000, however, waited mutely by the pit-head. Shortly before noon a linnet was let down in the cage and came up literally chirping. Until the arrival of the Normanton rescue gang "no further descent .was attempted. J''When these rescuers had gone down and an hour had dragged slowly by, the cage once more swung into view. All the men had to report was that they had fought their way through the smoke to some of the mine stables 400 yards from the shaft without finding any trace of their comrades. The stables in this mine are the rallying point in the event of a disaster. The rescue party, however, brought out a tabby .kitten found alive in the mine. One of the members of the rescue party collapsed in the mine. His companions failed to get him to the shaft, and, their supply of oxygen giving out, they had to abandon him. The lost man's name is John Welsby, of Barnsley. Twenty-four men are missing from the colliery roll of workers, but the miners come to work so irregularly that it is quite possible one or two are pot in the pit.