Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-11-11
CRIME AND CASUALTY.
Details of the Kansas Mine
Disaster.
AWFUL WORK OF DESTRUCTION,
Piles of Blackened COrpses More
About the Rochester Fire and
Its Victims.
Associated Press Dispatches to the HERALD.

Associated Press Dispatches to the HERALD. !
ST. LOUIS, November 10 "A special
from Pittsburg, Kan, gives details of the
horrible holt caust in the shaft of the
Pittsburg and Cherokee Mining Com
pany last night. The company had more
orders than they could fill, and had
been running an unusually large force Of
miners. Yesterday morning 164 men
were lowered into the mine. At noon
the shots were fred all right, and later
the miners descended for afternoon duty
At $50 they were ready to fire shots
again. The first shot had been fired, but
before the men could be hoisted terri
BILE rumbling noise was heard above,
and black cloud OF dust, slate
and dust shot into the air from the
mouth of the shaft, tearing away the
tracks upon which the cages were hoisted
and filling the shaft with debris. The
explosion occurred on the east side, and
is attributed to the inexperience of some
of the new men. Before the men out
side could recover their senses, one Of
the men appeared at the shaft nerly suf-
located, followed by others, until large
number escaped. How many is not
known. There is plenty of help at
hand, and those at the top have devoted
their attention to rescuing their en-
tombed companions. The fanhouse was
only slightly damaged and first
repaired, canvas being tackled over
the holes that had to be closed.
About IL o'clock the fan house was
ready and fresh air pumped into the
mine, driving back the poisonous gas
and averting suffocation. Attention was
then turned to raising the ribbing so that
the cages could be lowered.
Men lowered into the shaft by a rope
and bucket, could accomplish nothing.
At a. m. the cage was ready to descend
and the first rescuing party was lowered
into the shaft. Owing to bad air they
could not remain long. On the first re-
turn of the cage it contained a
number OF uninjured but badly
demoralized men. The bottom OF the
shaft is badly damaged. 1t is difficult to
get at the dead; as found they were
piled together at the bottom, while the
living and badly wounded were hoisted
to the top. At A. NJ. five men had been
rescued and at P. NJ. more were brought
out alive. At this time they struck an
entry containing twelve more dead, and
at this hour q P. NJ there are twenty
five dead and nine wounded found, with
twenty-five missing, supposed to be
dead. A large number OF the killed
were French and Italian miners. A tenn.
porary hospital has been prepared in
blacksmith shop near by, where the
most heartrending scenes are witnessed,
as the mangled and badly burned men
are carried in. David Tweed and w.
Elwood died soon after being taken out.
The casualties are now being placed at
ffty-two dead and eight injured.
LATER. "A special from Cherokee,
Kansas, says that ninety bodies have
been recovered. 1t is believed there are
still forty six in the..mine.
s5The principal difficulty in ascertaining
the names of the victims lies in the ia t
that there were large number of new
men who were not known to Pittsburg
people, and many may never be identii-
fed.