THE DEATH-ROLL

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 60, 12 March 1906, Page 2

THE DEATH-ROLL

CAUSE OF THE DISASTER

VICTIMS FRIGHTFULLY BURNT

(Received March 12, 8.24 a.m.) PARIS, March 11. According to the latest roll 591 miners have beeii rescued, and 1219 asphyxiated or crushed to death. The recent heavy rains in the north of France produced land-slips, and apparently affected the mines. First accounts suggested twenty killed. By late afternoon further rescue was abandoned and the disaster realised, though there are faint hopes that some took refuge in the lateral galleries. Many of those rescued were frightfully burnt.

M. Bar, chief engineer, led a band of fifty rescuers. He declares that the scenes below are awful.

A second rescue party reached a depth of five hundred feet, and heard their mates six hundred feet lower down, inaccessible.