EIGHT MINERS KILLED.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 767, 16 March 1910, Page 8

EIGHT MINERS KILLED.

Eight miners were killed by : the collapse of a pit cage on January 17'' at the Hattonrigg Colliery, near Coatbridge, Lanarkshire.

The men were ■ being brought to the surface when something went wrong with the winding engines. .' Instead of the cage stopping at the pit head it was carried to the top of the erection. The force of the .jerk was so'severe that the chain snapped where it was connected with the cage; and there being nothing to stop it, the cage with the eight men was precipitated to the bottom. The pit is one of the deepest in.the district, being fully 1800.feet deep. About a hundred miners were at the bottom-'awaiting, their turn' to ascend, and .saw the cage 'shoot like' a meteor from aloft, No one at the bottom of. the pit was injured. The victims of the. accment were terribly mangled, and the cage was smashed to splinters. Six of the men were 'Poles, and the other two were Andrew Hi'ggins, aged thirty-five, J w , a r s only recently married,. and Edward M Connell, agea twenty. ♦ The neighbouring village of Bellshill, where; most of. the colliers employed in the pit reside, was thrown into a state of great' excitement ■ when news of the accident reached it, and the inhabitants flocked hurriedly to the pit. - The uncertainty at .first ..concerning the victims' heightened , the distraction of those: who had , relatives in the pit', and there, were many pathetic meetings between those miners who were 'not in the cage and their, families.