The Grit-advocate., 1906-04-06
Thirteen LIVING
OUT OF TWELVE HUNDRED EN-.
ToMBEO COAL MINERS.
.MINE DISASTER IN FRANCE
Few Who Escaped Lived Twenty Days
in Darkness and Foul Air-Their
Horse Flesh,

Horse Flesh.
Lens, France.-Thirteen of the 200
miners who were entombed in the
coal mines at Courieres twenty days
ago were taken from the mine alive
and well Friday. They had lived on
stables. and the morseIs of food which
they took into the mine with them
nearly three weeks ago. All attempts
to rescue the entombed men had been
abandoned more than two weeks ago.
The sudden appearance of the i'm
prisoned men caused stupefaction. A
gang of salvagers had just completed
their nights work when they were
startled to see a group of miners. ter
riby haggard and exhausted and with
eyes sunken. appear from remote
part of pit No. . The strongest of the
party said they had broken out of a
distant gallery where they had been
entombed since the disaster of March
10th. The rescued men were taken up
the elevator but were unable to see
owing to the dazzling daylight.
The mine officials were deeply af-
fected as the weeping survivors were
taken to a hospital. The men were
able to talk feebly but audibly. They
all asked for news of relatives or
friends and wished to go home imme-
diately. The doctors. however, pre-
vented them with difficulty from SO
doing
Later crowds beseged the mines in
the hope OIL hearing of further escapes.
necessitating the. employment of a
strong police force and detachments of
troops to maintain order. 1t is said
that others of the entombed miners
are alive and about to be brought out,
their signals having been heard
One of the men rescued to-day, a
man named Nemy, said that for the
first eight Gays the party ate the bark
OF the timbers of the mine Later
they found the decomposed body of a
horse which they cut up and ate with
hay
The survivors brought up portions
of the decomposed horse meat.
Nemy, who was the most lucid of the
miners, who escaped, graphically de-
scribed their imprisonment as fol-
lows:
After the explosion groped my
way about stumbling over bodies and
seeking refuge from the gases.
found some comrades sheltered in a
remote niche We ate earth and bark
for eight days.
I'VE continued to grope among the
bodies seeking for ar outlet from our
prison, but were forced back time and
again We found some hay which we
ate and two days after We found a
dead horse. which we cut up and ate
with the hay and bark. We suffered
most for the want of water. Finally
we became desperate and separated
into three parties and communicated
with each other by shouts
Last night we felt draft of fresh
air which finally guided us to an open
ing"
The doctors have forbidden the sur
vivOrs to do any further talking. Vast
crowds of people surrounded the hos
pital where the escaped men are being
treated.
The families of the miners are in
tensely indignant. They claim that
salvage operations were never under
taken in the part of the mine from
which Nemy and his companions es-
capei and disorders are expected. The
most severe repressive measures have
been taken. Crowds of women de-
nounce the directors and engineers.
crying:
IF you had given us tools we would
have saved our own husbands