The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1892-01-09

CAUSE OF THE ACCIDENT UNKNOWN.
II is Supposed that Some Miner Fired a
Blast Without Warning.

Many of Those Rescued SO Horribly
Burned that They Cannot Recover
There were Four Hundred Men in the
Week Must Elapso Before All the
Entombed Can be Observation-Disclosures
tion of Many of the Victims impossible.
SOUTH MCALIsTER, l. T., Jan. 9.-The
entrance TO the Usage coal mine at Krebs,
five miles from here, is surrounded by a
mass of humanity, many of them women
and children who have been at the scene
almost every minute since the terrible
explosion of Thursday night hoping
against hope for tidings of lost one.
1t is impossible yet to give even an
estimate of the number of lives lost, but
1t is believed that the list will reach 100
and even more Many of the miners who
have been taken out are so badly burned
that they will die.
A hastily constructed but strong cage
has been placed in operation and the work
Of rescuing the entombed miners is being
expedited as rapidly as circumstances
will permit. The crowd about the mouth
of the pit has increased to over a thousand
people, As most of the miners are
Swedes, Norwegians and Italians the
mine officials have great difficulty in pre-
serving order and keeping them at such
distance as will allow the men to run
the cage without Interruption
Physicians from the neighboring towns
and cities have rendered their services
and are working to their utmost caring
for the injured, Miners from neighbor-
ing coal fields have hocked in by every
train during the night and day, tender
ing their assistance and heroically volun-
teering to enter the gloomy shaft in
which so many of their comrades have
persisted, and in which perhaps death
even awaited them on account of the
loosened boulders which the shock of the
explosion left upon a flimsy balance and
which breath of air might precipitate
upon them.
The McAlister mines dot the prairie at
intervals from quarter to half mile
and each is surrounded by the usual
novels which serve the purpose of
homes to the miners These homes pre-
sent a pathetic picture There is not one
in which the sound of mourning is not
heard,
Thus far about fifty bodies have been
recovered, and of these twenty-four have
being brought up. The injured are so
numerous and scattered so widely among
the village houses that their number can
hardly be estimated There were about
four hundred men at work, as nearly
as can be ascertained, about l50 of whom
escaped injury, while the others are either
imprisoned or have been brought up
injured. Each trip of the cage brings to
light new victim, whom the volunteers
carefully carry to the mine blacksmith
shop, which has been utilized as a tenn
porary morgue, and through which the
anxious crowd of miners wives and chill
dren surge in search Of the absent mem
bers OF their families.
Many Of the men, some say nearly half
employed in the mine succeeded in effect
ing their escape by climbed up through
the airshaft One of the men who es-
capped in this way climbing 450 feet
with Il broken leg. Many of those who
climbed TO the top We're badly burned, in
some cases the flesh stripping from their
hands as they grasped the ladder.
1t will be fully a week before all the
bodies OF the entombed can be reached
and brought TO the surface Work will
be pushed as fast as possible however,
and every endeavor will be made to get
at them.
What caused the explosion cannot be
stated, but it is supposed that some miner
fired blast without warming, proceed
ing in direct violation of the rules of the
mine
Many of the bodies recovered are so
charred and blackened that Identification
is impossible