SHOCKING MINING DISASTER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 31

SHOCKING MINING DISASTER.

NEARLY TWELVE HUNDRED MINERS KILLED. APPALLING SCENES. PARIS, March 11. A fire, which occurred at a depth of 700 ft, led to a terrific explosion in a mine at Courrieres, in the north of France, at 7 o’clock, on Saturday morning. The cages were destroyed, and the

cuttings in the mine were filled with poisonous fumes. Three- galleries became a vast furnace of flames, which leapt to the pit’s mouth. Seventeen hundred and ninety-five miners were buried. Four hundred were rescued.

The latest estimate is that eleven hundred and ninety-three persons have been killed.

Agonising scenes were witnessed at the head of the pit, where women relatives and friends of the entombed miners had gathered. When the news' spread that the galleries were caving in, further attempts at rescue -were abandoned.

APPALLING LOSS OF LIFE

DISTRESSING SCENES

WORK OF THE RESCUE PARTIES.

PARIS, March 12. The latest estimate is that upwards of eleven hundred deaths occurred in tho mine at Courriereis, in the north cf France, which took place on Saturday, and caused a terrible explosion.

Tho Prefect of Pas de Calais states that great difficulty is experienced in restraining bev’ildered wives and children of miners still under ground from approaching the flames issuing from the pits’ mouths —which are increasing in volume and intensity—and waylaying vehicles conveying corpses, with a view to ascertaining the fate of the breadwinners.

The Prefect has been compelled to summon reinforcements of troops and gendarmes to maintain order. The general excitement in the district is causing a certain degree of apprehension.

The explosion projected three cages with men, who were being lowered at tho time, and destroyed the roofs over the months of the nits.

Four men arrived at the surface by moans of ladders, after passing over tho bodies of men and horses prostrated by ' explosion. Then om that shaft the flames burst forth.

Tho rescuers, including doctors and engineers, descended other shafts, and rescued and brought to the* surface three hundred and fifty men who had been working half a mi'ie from the scene of the explosion. These men had not suffered severely. Later three hundred men, more or less injured,' were brought out of the mine.

Tho rescuers worked in* relays all day and night, and succeeded in making their way to within six hundred yards of the bottom of the shaft. Two miners were found alive at midnight. After the explosion one of the foremen had told them to lie down, which they did. and thus escaped the first gust of poisonous ah. After being prisoners for eight hours the foreman said h(t felt lie was dying, and urged the others to escape. The three tried to find their way out, hut the foreman was missed,' having no doubt fallen.

Many of those rescued were frightfully burnt. The chief engineer, who led a band of fifty rescuers, declares that the scenes below were awful.

A second rescue party reached a depth of five hundred feet, where the men could hear their mates, who were in an inaccessible position some distance lower. Recent heavy rains in the north of Franco produced a number of landslips, and apparently affected the mines. Tho first account stated that only twenty were killed, and it was not until late in the afternoon that the terrible extent of the disaster was realised.

PROFOUND IMPRESSION AT PARIS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE RELIEF FUNDS. PARIS, March 12. All Governments and heads of States have sent messages expressing condolence with the sufferers at Courrieres. Tho disaster has caused a profound impression at Paris. President Fallieres sent a representative to express his sympathy with the population of the town, which is practically confined to the mining community. Tlie outgoing Ministers of the Interior and of Works personally visited the scene. The Government is organising public relief for the widows and orphans. A press syndicate at Paris has initiated private charities.

So far as is known, the disaster at Courrieres last Saturday is the most appalling that has ever occurred, though fires, explosions, and other accidents, mostly attended by serious loss of life, have been sufficiently frequent to demonstrate tbe precarious life of the miner. To find anything even one-fifth as bad as Saturday’s fearful occurrence, it is necessary to go back forty years. In 1866, at Oaks colliery, near Barnsley, about 360 men were killed by an explosion, and on the following day a fresh explosion caused the death or twentyeight rescuers. In 1878, 268 persons perished in a Welsh mine through an explosion, and 189 were killed' near Wigan; over 170 perished through an explosion at Vancouver in 1887,. 184 in a, French mine in 1889, and 153 in m

1892. The breaking of an iron beam in the Hartley coal mine, Northumberland, in 1862, was the cause of 202 men and boys being alive. About .£70,000 was raised for the "relief of the and the inquiry into the disaster led to better provision for the safety of miners. An explosion of gas in a mine in South Yorkshire in February, 1857, caused the deaths of 189 miners. In April and May bodies were still being extricated. In New Zealand, the greatest mining disaster was the explosion in the Brunner mine, near Greymouth, in May, 1896, when 67 were killed. The relief fund amounted to about £20,000. It has been estimated that, on an average, about a thousand lives are lost every year owing to explosions and accidents in mines, so that: the little town of Courrieres suffered in one day more than the average annual loss over the whole world.