Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1903-05-12
MOUNTRENT JNTWAIN
A MINE DAMP ExPL OSiON DE-
STRCYS CANADIAN TOWN.
cliffs Tumble Into Village of Frank, in
British Columbia, Crush Houses, and
Kill scores in Their Beds = River
Damned aud Food Threatens.


Without an inst:nt Of warning. Turtle
mountain, in south ives tern Alberta. was
split asunder,' probably by an explosion
of fire damp in miae early Wednesday
morning, and a minute later the little
mining town of Fraak. situated at its
base, was overwhelmed with millions of
tons of rock
The inhabitants. aroused in alarm from
their slumbers by the tremendously loud
reverberation of the heaying mountain,
Were in many cases killed by the falling
stones, which crushed in their houses and
killed them in their beds
1t is believed that the victims of the
volcano number ninety-six. OF these,
eighty-two men, women and children are
said to have persisted in their homes.
Twelve miners employed by the French
Canadian Coal Company We're killed
while working around the company's
shaft, and two men who were working
in the shafts were smothered to death.
Fifteen companions dug their way out
through the broken rock.
To add to the horror Frank is threat
ened with complete destruction by food.
Old Mans river, which flows through
the center of the town, is damned up
with the fallen rocks to the height of
nearly 100 feet. The waters of the river
are backed up for miles and the entire
valley above the town is flooded.
Fissure Three-quarters Miles Long.
According to reliable reports from eye
witnesses, the earth opened for three
quarters of mile and many feet in
width. Then the whole northern face of
Turtle mountain slipped from place. The
shock resultant upon the precipitation
of the millions of tons of rock into the
valley demolished the houses where the
fatalities took place, and so shook the
foundations of the majority of the other
dwellings that they are unsafe to live in.
Many hundreds of people will have to
live in the open or under such temporary
shelter as may be procurable. The rail-
road track for a distance of two miles
or more east of the station is covered
with from ten to forty feet of rock.
Despite the great risk they ran of be-
Ing buried under the shower of rocks
from the mountain top, a volunteer relief
force was formed TO get into the mine
They managed TO approach near enough
to determine that not a man at the work
ings had escaped death, and the bodies of
many were seen who had been fearfully
mangled. Then they were forced to flee
by renewal of the discharge from the
mountain.
The disaster was merciful to those
men who were employed above ground
in that they must have been killed in
stantly. 1t was not confined to the vi
cinity of the mine alone, for many of
the dwelling houses in the town of
Frank, at a. considerable distance, were
demolished by falling rock. Nearly all
their occupants suffered death.
The accepted theory as to the cause of
the disaster is that it was due to a rock
slide caused probably by an explosion of
fire damp in the mine, which carried
the top of Turtle mountain down upon
the village below. What was at first
supposed to be the smoke of a volcano is
thought to be dust, and the continued
fall of small bits of rock merely the af-
termath of the original rockslide.