Overwhelmed by an Avalanche.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIV, Issue 15, 13 April 1910, Page 51

Overwhelmed by an Avalanche.

GREAT RAILWAY DISASTER IN AMERICA. latest American files give thrilling particulars of the sensational accident which occurred at Wellington, Washington, U.S.A., on March 1. Owing to a blizzard a mail and passenger train were blocked at the base of a mountain, and near a tunnel, when a terrific avalanche, carrying with it huge boulders and tree

trunks, swept down the sheer mountain side without a moment’s warning, and buried tile ears under tows of snow and debris. The night before the slide happened a party of ten men went to seek aidwalking along the rails through rain and snow to the nearest town. The story of one of the survivors gives a graphic picture of the peril in which the passengers stood. “The train,” said he, “was carrying fully 70 passengers. At about 6 o’clock on Wednesday morning we were stopped at the east portal of the Cascade tunnel. We stayed there until Friday, getting our meals at the bunkhouse, two meals a day. On Friday night we left the east portal, and au hour later, as we

afterwards learned, an avalanche wiped out the station and bunkhouse, killing two men. We pulled through the tunnel as far as Wellington, which is about half a mile .from the west portal. At Wellington there are three tracks. On the track nearest the mountain side stood a private ear, two box-cars, the engine and three of the electric motors. On the second track stood my train, consisting of an engine, baggage ear, two coaches, two sleepers and an observation car. On the third track stood the fast mail, on which were 16 to 18 mail clerks. About 16 track labourers were also sleeping on this train in the day coaehes.”

And he continues: “All this time it snowed continuously, with terrific winds driving the drifts. There was only coal ’enough to maintain the heat of our coaches, which was absolutely necessary-; because of the sick people aboard. Fcl this reason we abandoned a plan to run our train back into the tunnel.”

The ten men, after great privations, reached the town of Skykamish, where they sought aid, but before it could be sent a man came, breathless and exhausted, into the town to tell of the appalling disaster that had befallen. “All wiped out,” he cried. “Nothing but smooth snow where the track stood, and the train dumped into the canyon! Nobody can tell how many were killed.” All the wires were down, and no further news could be got, and 'because the avalanche and the (blizzard had buried the lines under impassable drifts no help could be sent for some time; but eventually three relief trains, with food and men, went down. But the cars had fallen 150 ft, and were buried under a mass of snow and debris packed hard as cement. Though the relief gangs worked continuously, there were but few saved. Not only the most of the passengers were lost, but a large number of labourers, who were clearing the track, were also killed, and of 110 people estimated to have been overwhelmed, only 20 escaped serious injury. Eleven passenger cars, three locomotives, four electric motors, one rotary snow-plough, the rotary shed and the sand house were swept away by the slide; the wreckage was strewn over half a mile, and of all the railway equipment all that could be discovered was splintered timbers—the rest lies hidden under many feet of snow until the thaw comes next summer.