Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-03-30
HORROR UNDER GROUND.
FlRE-oAMP SENDS SCORES OF MINERS
TO ETERNITY.
A Series of Explosions That Shake
the Country for Miles and Tell
an Awful Story.

| Forty Dead Recovered, the Bodies Man
| EIcd, DIsmembered and Sc0rched-Piti-
able Scenes Among the Stricken Mothers,
Wives and Children of the Doomed Men
A Column of Flame 100 Feet High
| Ieiohing from the shaft.
Rich HILL, Mo, March 3O-About 4
o'clock Thursday afternoon a rumbling noise
was heard in mine No. q and moment later
there was fearful explosion that entirely
wrecked the mine and buried in the debris
over 100 miners, who we're cut off from all
means OF escape. Forty dead bodies have al
ready been removed from the shaft, while
possible, in the midst of the terrible
excitement to obtain II complete list of names
of the unfortunates Tho little village is COM
pletely paralyzed by the horror, and men and
women are wandering about the streets cry
ing for the return of those known to be in the
shaft. The superintendent of the mine was
badly injured, but alive when taken from the
shaft. His face was horribly disiigured by
the explosion, and the flesh of his arms was
torn in shreds, 1t is thought he can not live.
The explosion occurred when the full force
Of 100 men were at work in the mine. Not
one Of the survivors has been able to give
any coherent story about the shock. The
earth seemed to snap and the nextinstant all
was darkness Although the mine is six
miles from town the explosion shook every
house. Nearly every one seemed to divine its
81 n l.
streets leading to the shaft filled with bare
headed women and children, who screamed
as they ran Such scenes as were witnessed
at the mouth of the shaft have no parallel in
the Missouri coal fields. A thousand people,
for the most part women and children in tat
tered clothes, were at the pit filling the night
air with their lamentations.
The work of recovering the bodies is being
prosecuted with frantic haste but the task is
so great rs to be almost agonizng. The bod
les already removed from the pit show the
terrific force of the explosion. Coal dust has
been blown into the flesh of the dead until
they look like the bodies of negroes. Some of
the bodies are frightfully mutilated. Arms
legs, and eyes have in some instances, been
blown out of their sockets, while others of
the unfortunates have been cruelty distig
ured as 10 be unrecognizable. The dead are
strewn through the corridors of the mine and
it is feared that all of them will never he re-
covered, as gas is filling the pit and choking
the survivors
There was a series of explosions The first
which shook the country for miles around,
was followed "a few moments later by another
shock of oven greater violence then the first.
The flames began to pour from the mouth
of the shaft, and in few moments a sheet of
fire nearly 100 feet in height was streaming
skyward. After the first explosion Superin-
tendent Sweeny descended int the mine. He
had gone but short distance when the Sec
ond shock came, the flames enveloping the
and his aids Nearly all of
these are supposed to be lost At o o'clock
night there was another explosion,
and again the flames roared from the mouth
Of the shaft, Illuminating the country for miles
LATER.-The flames are now within 200 feet |
of the powder magazine, where nearly ton |
of explosives are stored
As the night wore on the stories brought to |
town as to the number of the dead and the |
living became more conflicting. At midnight |
it was reported that over eighty lives have |
been lost and that the bodies recovered from |
the seething furnace do not exceed fifteen.
1t is also reported that Superintendent |
Sweeny has been lost, although it was posi- |
lively declared early in the evening that he |
had been rescued in dying condition When |
it was seen that those imprisoned in the pit |
cold not live in such crater the mine was |
flooded, but the water did not extinguish the |
fire, which continued to burn tercely. The |
grief stricken people at the mine are helpless
te render aid, but they refuse to return to
their homes
LATEsT.-A report is now current that
there were only thirty men in the mine at the
time, but it is impossible to state whether this
IS true or not