WHITEHAVEN DISASTER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVII, Issue LVII, 14 May 1910, Page 5

WHITEHAVEN DISASTER.

LITTLE HOPE OF RESCUE.

RESCUE PARTIES DRIVEN BACK.

137 MEN ENTOMBED.

[PEESS ASSOCIATION.]

LONDON, May 13

Experienced rescue parties as> Whitehaven are still baffled. There was terrible disappointment on their returning and • reporting that the task was impossible. There is little hope of rescue, as there is a solid wall of tiame to fight. The Inspector of Mines ordered the rescuers to desist, fearing a rurther explosion. Steele, the manager of the pit, stated that the rescuers gained three hundred yards on the fire, which is five hundred yards from the ehaft bottom. It is impossible that any of the entombed miners will return,, the intake being filled wifh flames and the return fouled with noxious gases.

The fire drove the rescuers back. Lamps repeatedly exploded and would not live in the atmosphere. It is believed that one party of sixtaen of the entombed men is behind a closed door. Little Woods, a Shemelder, who descended the Maypole on the 9th instant, has arrived with special apparatus, and descended Whitehaven lasjfe night in the hope »f extinguishing the fire with chemicals. He .has not yet reported: The latest estimate is that 137 are entombed.