“DEAD FOR BREAD”

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1747, 30 August 1905, Page 61

“DEAD FOR BREAD”

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, July 14. The worst colliery disaster that has occurred for more than ten years took place last Tuesday at the No. 2 pit of tbs United National Collieries Company's mines at Wattstown, in Rhondda Valley. One hundred and eighteen miners perished and the mine manager also lost his life. 'The loss of- life, great though it is. is small compared to that occurring at the Albion mme, near Pontypridd in 1894, when 260 men were either killed outright or buried alive; or the more remote, yet still more dreadful calamity, which resulted in 360 souls perishing through the fearful explosion which destroyed the Oaks pit near Barnsley in 1866. Eleven years after that tragedy 200 miners were sent swiftly to death in the pits at High Blantyre, near Glasgow, and, two years, later still, 268 men and boys lost their lives at Ebbw Vale. Between 1860 and the present day there have been no less than sixteen colliery disasters, each resulting in the deaths of over a hundred people. Of themselves indeed, these sixteen accidents have A total death-roll of nearly 3000. The Wattstown calamity occurred j u@h before mid-day, the sound of the expl®» 6ion being followed by the upheaval of tons of aust and wreckage from tho shaft. A rescue party was at the pit's mouth ere the dusty haze of the explosion had cleared awaj, but the winding gear and the guides of the pit had been wrecked, and before these things could be remedied, and the rescuers could effect a descent a couple of precious hours had passed. Meanwhile, 'from near and far thousands of sturdy miners hastened to th« spot, and a multitude of weeping women, and shrieking, terror-stricken children made a vast cordon round the piUs mouth, the numbers augmenting rapidly as the magnitude of the disaster became known in the outlying districts. An effective cordon of police, however, kept the space clear for the operations of rescue parties, for which there were as usual, scores of volunteers ready to face the afterdamp in order to reach their comrades below. Unfortunately the work of rescue was seriously impeded, and at length completely stopped by the foul air. After eight bodies had been recovered nothing further could be done until the after-damp uad been sufficiently dissipated to make rescue operations possible. Indeed the foul air was so general and poisonous that at in the afternoon the officials had sorrowfully to confess that for the remaining men in the pit there was no hope. Again and again did the rescuers endeavour to penetrate to the working©, only to be driven back by th© deadly atmosphere of the mine. Nothing remained to be done except to adopt measures for. introducing powerful air-currents and wait patiently during the hour's which must elapse before anything like a safe working atmosphere had been secured.

Late at night a party of miners managed to penetrate a considerable distance into the main seam before being, compelled to retreat by tbe vicious gases. They found sixty bodies, most of them unrecognisable to the rescuers in th»> dim light of their Davy lamps. So bad "was the air beyond where these bodies were found that the valiant little party , had to beat a hasty retreat. to save themselves from asphyxiation, and their reluctant conclusion that nothing could &€ alive beyond the point to which they explo.zd was unhappily verified when on the morrow further searches became possible and the bodies of the remainder of the victims were discovered. The cause of the explosion remains a myeterv.