The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-12-20
DIRE DISASTER.
! The Chamber OF Death

MILKEsBARRE, Pa, December 10
The outlook at No. 1 stope, this morn
ing, is frightful. Mine Inspector Will
Iams says that if the men can be reached
IN IS hours, they will be found alive.
Tot al exhaustion Will not occur before
then and the chance of rescue Is, this
morning, very slim from the fact that
the air circle. has been broken. This
was aSceFtaiRed by the second reseGing-
party working at the opposite end from
the first party in Slopes No. l. SupU
Morgan finds that there are 81 feet
of qilicksand. Culm and earth 10 be dug
away. This is wedsed in between the
mine timbers, which have sprung i'm
ward and crossed, presenting an al
most insurmountable barrier. Shifts are
now changed every two hours. but the
culm and quick 5and by its very nature,
nils in the place of that which was
taken out before. One authority saws
/ it will require five2 or six days TO dig
4 through. This ends all hope of the
! twenty nine men imprisoned, who it l.
/ believed died within the first twelve
hours from suffocation Sixteen Eng
! lish, Irish and Welsh, and thirteen
Polanders and Hungarians are now
known to be entombed IN the chamber
of death.
The gangway being blocked Up ATONE
end. they could get no circulation OF
air until the tubes were brought and
the air forced forced through them
from the compressor used for rock
drills to the place where the men were
at work. The rescuers are working
with the greatest possible energy to-
night; 1ne 9nou5nU en- aU tIfeIr comrades
are perishing on the other side of the
mass of rock and dirt, nerves every
arm with grand strength; the gangs
are relieved every four hours and sixty
men have been constantly at work
! since last evening. At o'clock this
/ evening it was believed they had PEN
etrated TO within fifty or SIXTY
! feet where the imprisoned men are.
i Another party is working from the
direction of the stope towards the same
point They have further to go. but
| have better facilities. There is little
ground for hope, but efforts will not be
abandoned until the fate of the i'm
prisoned men is determined. The peo-
pie of Nanucoke are in the greatest ex-
element, and nothing is thought of or
talked of but the disaster. Business is
partially suspended, and the cOlliery is
surrounded by hundreds of persons,
among whom are many relatives or the
imprisoned men, eager to- know how
the work goes on below, and to gain the
hope that their friends NAV be rescued.
II The officials OF the company state, this
! evening, that there are twenty four
men in the fatal stope-not twenty
nine, as is generally understood.
They state, further. that the
disaster was precipitated by the col
lapse of a passage way OF the tunnel 70
the extent of five feet, causing depres-
sion, which brought down into the
tunnel q twenty foot vein of lake quick
sand. The vacuum created by this
break created an arch and through the
heavy G re in the roof mass Of culm,
estimated at 5000 tons, with the con-
tents of a pond of water overhead, con-
tanning over 100000 gallons, poured
in, flooding both No. I and No. 2 Slopes
and choking up the tunnel and carry
ing with it fifty-twO miners who were at
work there. OF these men twenty-four
were in all probability caught, before
they could gain the chambers that
pitched upward and they are supposed
to be in this quicksand and culm.
WILK EsBARRE, Pa, December 19.-lt
has been definitely decided that the dis
aster at slope No. 1, of the Susquehanna
I Coal Company at Nanticoke. was caused
by the caving in OF the roof and the
rushing in of a large body OF water,
which had accumulated on the surface
from natural drainage. This water
brought with 1t vast quantity OF coal
dirt, which blocked the gangRayS and
passages, and cut off the escape of 8
1 number of men in the upper lift. The
cave in was caused by the blast
lot one of the men now In the
mine. The exact number of men i'm
prisoned cannot even now be exactly
told but at o'clock this evening 1t was
believed. on what seemed to be good
grounds that twenty-line persons Tare
IN the mine; Of these eighteen are Welsh,
Irish or American, and the rest Polish
or Hungarian laborers, Whether they.
are alive or dead cannot be told; IT they
have been enabled to obtain fresh air,
thew are undoubtedly still alive, and
there is good hope for recovering them
Many experienced miners believe,
however, that in their position
they cannot get any new. supply o
ar, and that, having exhausted what
Ii tie there was in the workings,
they nIusI now be perishIng from sutto-
cation. Measures for the relief of those
still in the mine we're begun as soon as
the other men had been brought 20 the
surface. at first, little could be done.
for the water was five feet deep ana
was impossible to begin digging away
the quicksand which blocked up the
gangwaY. Last evening, however, the
water subsIded. having run of TO the
lower levels of the mine, and effective
work was commenced in earnest. Two
gangs o. men were set to work, excavat-
ing from the different points to where
IL is believed the men are; ole
party Of sixty strong commenced work
from the foot of the air shaft. This is
the nearest point to the place where the
men are. but great difficulties are en-
C, d uttered. There is no hosting appa
rstuS at the air shaft. Men and tools
a e sent down by derrick. The Work
es are obliged to throw behind them
the material they excavate and THIS
htnders them.
NASAL ME -rCL, So ,,-;th eaeh