128 Coalminers Entombed

Wanganui Chronicle, 9 September 1950, Page 5

128 Coalminers Entombed

They Are All Alive And Rescuers Confident Of Succeeding LONDON. Sept. 8 (Recd. 1 am). Rescue learns, which worked through the night, prepared today for a second attempt Io reach 128 miners still trapped 720 feet down the Knockshin-

nock Castle colliery. Rescue squads are breaking through a 40 feet barrier of coal to cut an escape way. Fears that 13 were drowned when into the colliery lasi night have been 100 square yards of mud subsided into the colliery last night, have been dispelled. The men were trapped when almost the whole field sank into the colliery late last night, due to Hooding from heavy rains. The trapped men are in telephone communication with the pithead, the foreman, Mr. Andrew Houston, making calls every fifteen minutes. Ho reported that all 128 are accounted for. H > added: “'They are sitting quietly confident of rescue. The air is still quite good.”

Hundreds of volunteers strove all I night to stem a sea of mud pouring down an enormous subsidence crater. They flung in trees, haystacks, timber and even £lOOO worth of steel pit trucks. : Hundreds of women, some with babies in arms, stood all night, at the pithead waiting for news. Some wept joyously when they heard mine officials say this morning that they were confident they would get. all the men I out alive. • Eight men escaped last night as the | surface collapsecT. An engine-driver, iMr James Serrie, said he heard a I rushing noise and then saw a muddy | sludge burst through the walls where h* was working. He ran over a quarter of a mile to the escape shaft. shouting to his mates as he ran.