COLLIERY DISASTER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11146, 9 December 1907, Page 5

COLLIERY DISASTER.

EXPLOSION x\ND FIRE

425 LIKELY TO PERISH.

MEN HURLED THROUGH VENTILATING SHAFT.

PITIFUL SCENES

| (Press Assn.— By Telegraph.— Copyright) NEW YORK, December 7. I A mining disaster occurred yesterday at Monongah, nearFairmount. A Tlie scene of the catastrophe was the Baltimore Consolidated Coal /Company's mine, where through an' • explosion two pits mutually connected and situated on opposite sides ofthe Monongahela river were set oh fire- "' ■. t j Some hundreds of men were at work m the, mine, aiid a number of them were hurled through the ventilating shafts. The actual loss of life is not yet known, but it is feared 425 perished. The fumes were sp dense that search parties who entered the mine were unable to penetrate any distance. Some of the bodies recovered by explorers were so mutilated as to be q,uite unrecognisable. /.'.,.-'■' All the passages of the mine are blocked by the fall :of debris. r . '/■ It will.be a niiracle if any of the en? tombed' men are saved. The force' of the explosion .was so great that it shook al! the houses within 4 radius bf eight miles; (Received December 9, 11.30 a.m.) NEW YORK, Dec. 8. ' Eighty-five bodies' have been recovered at Monongah. I. ; The explosion carried a block of concrete weighing- a thousand pounds acros? the river and- embedded it m the hillf 'side. .:- ;'",",- '- ;-r-- ./•. Officials believe that a, blockage at the entrance a few hundred' feet beypnd -the main opening caused an interruption of tlie ventilating system,' thus killing those' entombed m a few minutes. ' 7 Monongah has six thousand inhabi : 'tan'ts.,;.,. '.".•■-;■.".'"'.'•.:'■ .i 7 ■■."''' „■-.'■: '-./ ./J'i- / Throughout the night hundreds of meistood at the mouth of the pit. The jwpinl en crowded the hillsides, finally, cryitog themselves tP sleep on f rezen grp ui id. Five nien have .been ; rescued.; AH were injured' and unable to- detaili of' the disaster. ' // : 4 7 / jParties of ten meneabh are working in' short relays, owing to the accuniulation of gases. .' ; / -'; . !