INQUIRY URGED INTO MINE DISASTER

Chronicle (Levin), 28 March 1947, Page 5

INQUIRY URGED INTO MINE DISASTER

Received Thursdav, 7 p.m. WARRINGTON, March 26. Senator Brooks ( Hepublieah, Illinois) has demanded a Congressional investigatio'n into the Wamac mitre disaster to deterniine whether the negligertce of any Federal ofticer had con'tributed to it. The Federal coal mines administrator Gaptain X. H. Gollisson, in an inlerview-, said that because of lack of personnel the admiaistration did not check mines immediately to determine whether they had eorrected safety violations. Mines in niost cases were given a reasonable time in which to make eorrection and the mines were not cheeked agajn until the Bureau of Mines made its reinspection. Mr. Wally Hopkins, attorney for the Fnited Mineworkers ' Union, said the (iovernment had been infornted of safety* violations when the mine's inspection took plaee 011 Norember 3. lnspectors th.en notilied the Interior Department that the mine owners were blasting at the end of each shift but the Secretary of Interior, Mr. Ivrug, allegedlv took 110 steps to prevent this practice. A spokesman for the Centralia Coal Company said late today that rescue squads were making good progress. The gas was cleariug and with good luck they should reach the entombed men in four hours. The mine's chief electrician who entered the gas filled tunnel after the explosion. expressed the opinion that there could not be any survivors. It is the first major mine disaster in Illinois for iifteen years. The State 's worst accident occurred 011 November 13, 1901), when 269 miners were ki-lled at Cherry. The nation 's worst mine. disaster occurred at Monogah, West Virginia on December 6, 1907, when 361 were killed.