The age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1897-1902, 1899-12-10
Screaming Women and Children Crowd
ed Around the Entrance.
PITIFUL SIGHT AT THE HOSPITAL
Sixteen Torn and Mutilated Bodies
Have Been Taken from the Tun-
mel, and it is Thought
The Few Escaped


ter occurred today in the mines of the Car
bon Hill Coal company, in which large
number of miners lost their lives. Sixteen
bodies hava been taken from the mines,
and it is believed that few of the seventy
or eighty men who were in the mines at
the time escaped.
Shortly before Has o'clock this forenoon
this ordinarily quiet coal mining village
was stunned with the first report of ter
rife subteranean explosion in the Carbon
Will mine, the tunnels of Which run for
miles under the town. There was an
enormous rumbling, smoothered sound for
a few moments and then 1t ceased abruptly.
The people who had been accustomed to
gaining a livelihood by mining knew at
once what this meant, and stood around
with blanched faces
Apprehens ions of some fearful disaster
were confirmed in a little while with in
formation that the mining shift in tunnel
Nc z had been caught in an explosion of
fire damp. The meagre report conveyed
the information that all who were in the
mine must have been killed, as there Was
no chance of escape. Those who were not
killed outright would be hemmed in by
falling walls and timber and suffocated by
fumes and smoke before an opportunity Of
relief could come. A rush of the inhab-
liant was made DIN the direction OF the
mouth of the tunnel, women, the wives of
the men supposed to be in the shaft, ran
to and fro, screaming and wringing their
han6s with anguish, with crying children
clinging to their skirts. It was all that T.
ID nf mi
do to keep the friends of the doomed miners
and their wives from plunging madly into
the tunnels mouth.
Sixteen Were Taken Out
Sixteen bodies, all mangIed out of recog-
milton, have so far been taken out by the
relief corps
The forenian of the shaft, ]. H. Davies,
escaped unhurt, and with him twenty Fin
nish miners are believed to have gotten out.
! 1t Is said Davies had seventy-eight men
working under him.
So far details of the disaster are meagre,
as Superintendent Davies and Foreman J.
H. Davies, of the day shift, are now down
In the mine engaged in the work of rescue.
The men employed in the first day shift
worked from a. m. to p. m.
The explosion occurred just as the men
were preparing to leave the shaft at the
noon hour.
Several Welch miners also escaped, but
they Immediately turned and went back
into the mine in the hope of being able to
rescue their less fortunate companions.
The coal mines here are those of the Car
bon Hill Coal company, but they really be-
long to the Southern Pacific Railway COM
pany. The coal Is a soft bttuminous varie-
ty, productive of large proportion of gas,
and has been much used in gas manufac-
ture. The mines gave employment to 400
men and have an output of 800 900 tons an
nually. The mines are in a deep ravine,
through which the Carbon river flows. 1t Is
a glacial river. The mines are supplied
with every appliance for safety. They are
largely tunneled and the tunnels are so big
that locomotives run into them.
The depth of the mines varies from about
$50 to 1000 feet, according to the contour of
the surface. Ever since the catastrophe
Superintendent Davies and Foreman John
Davies have been fighting against the great
odds of this deadly gas, aided by the brave
Welshmen.
At D. m. a number of men were pulled
I'D through the timber chute near the sum-
NIT of Wingate Hill from a depth Of sew
eral hundred feet. They were picked up
from six Of the levels near the water level.
Three more have been rescued through the
inclined tramway. All of them are badly
blackened and burned, and they were i'm
mediately taken to the company's hospital
and wrapped in clothes soaked In hnseed
oil by physicians who had been summoned.
The scenes at the hospital were pitiful
Men whose clothing was almost burned
from their bodies were laid out as fast as
they arrived, their eyebrows and hair
singed and their faces black and bleeding
Women and children surrounded the build
ing weeping. Rescue parties are working
both in the incline and at the old timber
chute on the hill.
As far as known the following were killed
either by the explosion of the fire damp or
suffocated by black damp which usually fol-
lows: Reese Jones, fire boss: Dan Davies,
Evan Lewis. Richard Durr, John Jones,
Thomas Edwards, Howell Merdith, John
Phillips. Howell Merdith was working con-
siderably above the water level when the
explosion occurred, and he lowered him
self down a timber chute to rescue one of
his sons, Daniel Merdith, working below.
The son came out unharmed, but the faith
er lost his life.
The tunnel in which the explosion took
place Is abuot one and one-quarter miles In
length on a water level under the south
west part of the town. There are several
air chutes running up to the surface of
Wingate hill. Timber gangs are at work
replacing the deranged timbers and hescu-
ing the imprisoned miners or taking out an
occasional body. The fans are working well
and most of the black damp is rapidly being
sucked out of the mine.