Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1902-07-14
MANY MINERS DIE
JOHNSTOWN SCENE OF ANOTHER
FRIOHTEUL CALAMITY.
Terrible Explosion in the Cambria
Coal Mine Temporarily Buried
Eight Hundred Ma Or-
ity Escaped. but Over One Hum
dred Persisted.

Johnstown, July ll.-The impression
employees OF the Cambria Steel Com
pany that $50 is low estimate Of the
death list of the Rolling Mill mine.
Eighty-seven bodies and IA living men
have been brought from the mine. The
mine officials will make no estimate
of the dead. Heroic work was done by
rescue party of 40 during the day.
1t is difficult to picture with any de-
gree approaching its full worth the
work of rescue. How brave men went
into the jaws of death in its most bor-
rible form, encountered their fellows
transformed into raving maniacs by
hours of waiting in the pitch darkness
of the earth's interior, lifted them
moaning from their beds OF fallen rock
and then. bending and crawling on all
tours, carried them a quarter Of a mile
under ground to where cars could be
reached to take them outside.
Johnstown, Pa, July ll.-By an ex-
plosion in the Cambria coal mine about
noon 800 men were entombed, and it is
feared the loss OF life will be terrible.
All miners from the surrounding
mines have been called to the scene to
aid in the work OF rescuing and the time
rolls OF the company are being checked
to learn if possible the exact number OF
men that are now under ground.
At 3 O'Clock the first men escaped
from the mine through an old shaft.
They report that many are dead in the
mines, instnatly killed by the first ex-
plosion, and say that at least 200 are
either already dead or so situated that
they can not be rescued.
The mines are situated in lonely
place and some Of the escaped men al
most suffocated and informed the ready
rescuers that unless the work be carried
on quickly all in the mine would perish.
Some of the men are miles under
ground and it may take weeks before
their bodies are recovered.
The work Of rescue is being carried
on as rapidly as possible.
During the afternoon it became
known that many men had escaped,
and that drift No. 6, known as the
klondike, was practically the only one
effected. But here 200 men were at
work, and women watched and waited
for the end. From $50 o'clock in the
afternoon till 6 in the evening the work
of the searching parties was in vain,
but the first faint ray Of hope came
when the bodies of a man and boy were
brought out into the daylight, uncon-
scious, but alive.
Then at IL 20 p. m. four more men,
unconscious, were brought to the sur
face, but a doctor who came with the
men reported passing 25 dead bodies on
the way.
Outside OF the Klondike, the mines
are safe and uninjured. Within the
fatal limits of the mine the havoc
wrought is such that beggars descrip-
ton. Solid walls OF masonry three feet
through were torn down as though bar
riers OF paper. The roofs OF the mine
were demolished, and not door re-
mains standing. In the face of these
difficulties, even the most heroic efforts
towards rescue may we'll seem hopeless.
At l2:l5 O'Clock in the morning,
General Manager Moore, who with
Superintendent Robinson, had penetrat-
ed to considerable distance in the
klondike, reached a telephone station,
and notified the men at the main en-
trance that he had recovered SO bodies
up to that time, and had only been in
the right rooms.
AS near as can be learned less than
were Hungarians and Slavs.