MINING DISASTER.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13463, 9 December 1907, Page 5

MINING DISASTER.

EXPLOSION AND FIRE

HURLED THROUGH SHAFTS

FOUR HUNDRED MIXERS PERISH

Association-By Telegraph-Copyright Received 4.42 p.m., December Bth.

NEW YORK, December 7. A mining disaster occurred yesterday at Monongan, near Fairmounl. The scene of the eatai'tiophe' was the Ba'timore Consolidated Coal Company's mine where, through an explosion, two setsj, mutually connected and situated on opposite sides of the west fork of the Monongahela river, were set- on fire.

Some hundfieds of men ■« ere atl work in the mine. A number of them were hurled through the ventilating shafts. The actual Ices of life is not; yet known, but it is feared that 425 have perished. Thet fumea were so' dense that tha search parties' who entered l the mine were unable to penetrate far. -Some of the bodies that were discovered by tha'explorers were so mutilated as to be quite unrecognisable. All the passages l in the mine were blocked by the fall of debris, and it will be a miracle, if any of the entombed men are saved. • The force of the explosion was fo great, that it shook all the houses within ii radius of eight miles.