U.S. MINE DISASTER

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 101, 30 March 1925, Page 10

U.S. MINE DISASTER

WORST IN HISTORY.

HEARTRENDING SCENES

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 25,

Latest details of the mine horror at Sullivan, in tho State of Indiana, one of tho worst disasters in American history, show that the rescuers toiling through several nights in wrecked subterranean entrance of the city mine had to light noxious gases as they sought the bodies of the 50 men who perished when cave-ins followed a terrific gas explosion in the north-east shaft of the coal mine. Five of the safety men were overcome by the deadly gases in the first few hours, and were brought back to the surface unconscious. Presence of the noxious fumes slowed up the work of removing the bodies, and four days elapsed before the hist of the dead miners was recovered. The solo cage operating had been taking up the corpses from one district in the mine where 39 men had been struck down together. Fifteen thousand frantic people waited at the mouth of the pit, and a scene beggaring description was enacted when the relatives of the victims were informed that all the miners had been killed by the explosion and after-damp. Black damp choked all entries to the mine, and rescue workers could not remain long at tho barricades. Where arc lights flared above the noisome pithead a frantic throng surged to and fro; weeping women, shrill voiced children and sombre-faced men were in the strange gathering of waiters at the pithead. Front time to time they rushed the cordon of deputy sheriffs holding them back, crushing toward the cage when it had brought a new burden of corpses to land. People poured into Sullivan from tho entire countryside, and before the midnight of the first day of the explosion it was estimated that over 20,000 had visited the mine since tho disaster.

Resellers found a grim scene where father and son, working side by side at the face of the coal, were found lying together in death, struck down by the hail of debris from above.

Red Cross workers and 35 doctors set up a field station at the mine, where they cared for relatives who broke down as their dead were identified. In most cases identification of the charred bodies was possible only when an identification tag could be found. HOMES BECOME MARGUES. Shops, homes and the local hospital became temporary morgues. Exhausted rescue workers, who had battled the dread black damp, dug through barricades of fallen slate and struggled fit slimy darkness to reach the north-east shaft, where the explosion trapped the doomed men, and they brought graphic stories of the scenes of terror below the surface.

One report was that the explosion occurred when a cutting machine broke through into an old working of the mine and released pockets cf gas, which immediately ignited. One of the cages was blown almost entirely out of the shaft by the explosion. As tile roar of exploding gas rocked the long entries, roofs, pillars, and rooms collapsed. One hundred and forty-two men were below ground when the explosion came. The city mines’ entries run a spider web network under the suburbs of Sullivan. Workers in the western rooms and entries wero able to reach the bottom of the main shaft safely, although the black damp was spreading. Tho black damp became so foul that when 709 feet in tho workings, the rescue crew had to beat a hasty retreat, and it took two hours to reroute the rescuers in their “crawl” through the mine. The men were forced to push air before them. As they advanced 45 feet they returned 45 feet and “brattished up” cross entries to keep the air from crossing over, thus forcing it ahead of them. Tho work was slow and tedious. Rain fell throughout the second night, adding to the misery of the crowds of relatives of the trapped men. Men, women, and children waited about the mouth of the mine, some seemingly paralysed aito silence by tho tragedy, others weeping and shrieking hysterically.