The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1893-01-25
EIGHTY MINERS KILLED.
Terrible Disaster in q Bohemian
...-- Colliery.
CAUSED BY AN EXPLOSION OF GAS.
Vrave Men Who Rushed to the Rescue
Brought Back Unconscious-w Women of
the Dead Mems Families Attempt to
Mob the Mine Ofiicials,

Vrave Men Who Rushed to the Rescue
Brought Back Unconscious-w Women of
the Dead Mems Families Attempt to
Mob the Mine OfHcials.
VIENNA, Jan. 25.-Fighty miners were
Killed and scores were injured in an explo-
SION in the FortsGhritt mine near DuX.
Bohemia, AS the shifts were changing,
cage full of miners had been lowered haIf
way down the shaft when the ground
trsmbled, loud rumbling report was
heard and the cable attached to the cape
gave such lurch that the lowering ma
chlnery broke. A rush of air and dust
from the pits mouth, the sound of crash
ing timbers and the cries of the men in the
cage gave warning to the men about of the
extent of the disaster Help was sum-
mohet, Inc machinery was repaired after
delay of half an hour and the cage was
raised Ten of the occupants had been
Killed instantly by the shock, and ten had
suffered fractures from which they cannot
recover Five, who had broken limbs and
internal injuries, will live They had been
half suilocated by the gas rising in the
shaft, and said that no man could live
below.
An hour later the superintendent of the
mine and five miners from the NIGHT shift
went down in the cage They were unable
TO go more than hundred yards from the
shaft into the gallery. but they found four
teen dead bodies. OF the fifty men who
nnu neen waiting for the cage ten had been
Killed and forty had been partially crushed
by falling timbers or half snifocated by tbe
tohi AIR short distance from the shaft
the superintendent found four bodies
which had been crashed beyond recogni-
tion by falling beam. The bodies and the
injured were taken 10 the top, where the
whole mining settlement had gathered to
watch the work of rescue
Rescucrs Rendered Unconscious,
The men who had been brought up from
the bottom said that a few minutes after
TN" explosions they had heard cries and
groans from the mouth of the gallery
about three hundred yards from the shaft.
There was heavy timber work at this place.
and they believed that the men in this
gallery had been Imprisoned BY the falling
beams They believed that some forty
men had been al work there. Shortly be
ioie the cage came down, they said, the
cries ceased
Another rescue party went down at once
and after three of them had been carried
back to the Shaft unconscious penetrated
TO the entrance Of the gallery. The en-
trance was completely blocked BY the
wrecked woodwork. The rescue pnrty
could see sevt al dead bodies on tho other
site OF the timhers but were unable to get
at them, and returned to the top empty
handed. 1t is believed that all the men i'm
gallery were sutfocated or killed by the
shock of tbs explosion. Twelve miners
who worked i'll the extreme interior of the
mine on the night shift, and had not
started for the shaft so soon as their com
panoRs ars also believed to be dead.
Despite the apparent hopelessness Of the
situation rescue party is still in the mine
and thousands have gathered at the pits
mouth
W hen the extent of the disaster began |
to become evident the women of the dead |
men families attempted to mob the mine |
officers, accusing them of carelessness in
the management of the mine and Of in |
difference as to the fate of their husbands |
and brothers below The mine ofticialS |
sent TO DnS for police, and three com
panies of soldiers are camped in the fields |
around the pits mouth.