MINERS PERISH.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1503, 27 July 1912, Page 5

MINERS PERISH.

AMERICAN DISASTERS. A DAM BURSTk AND FLOODS WORKINGS. PATHETIC SCENES. By Telesrauli-Press Aesoeiation-CoDsrisut Vancouver, July 25. Imports from Uniontown, in Pennsylvania, stnto that Ihcro are sixty dead in the small towns which wero stricken owing to Die bursting of a reservoir. In the Hooded Frick mine the fourteen men were drowned liko rats in a trap. When tlio ilood entered the Superba mine from tho reservoir at Evans Station the meu cut off at tho 4000 ft. entrance to the shaft were drowned in the inner workings, whence they ran seeking au escapo. In other.mines many escaped by swimming through tho galleries, wliile the water was pouring: in. Wives and mothers of tho miners frantically tried to prevent the water entering one mine by throwing: sticks, stones, and rubbish into the hole.

The women then tried to enter the mine to'giro the warning, but the overseers stopped them, fearing they would be overwhelmed. Five mines altogether were flooded.. Great difficulty is experienced in recovering tlio bodies. TOWN SAVED IN NICK OF TIME. A PROMPT WARNING. Vancouver, July 25. A dramatic etory is told of the storm in West Virginia. In the town of Dunbar, a clerk working in the quarries, two mile 3 distant, was Trarned by telephone that a great flood was coming, tho dam containing the town's water supply having burst. Tho clerk telephoned to a friend in Dunbar to warn everybody. The latter rushed through the streets calling on the residents to flee, for their lives. Instantly Hie people, numbering several thousands, fled to the hills, escaping in the nick of time. The water submerged tlio streets, and did much damage to buildings, but no lives were lost. Tho railway bridgo was carried away, and tho telephone lines are down. ', If the warning had not been given hundreds would certainly have perished. AMERICAN DAM DISASTERS. INSUFFICIENT SUPERVISION BY THE STATE. America is notorious for its dam disasters. Last year the town of Austin, Pennsylvania, was partly swept away, and nearly a hundred lives lost. A few days later canio the report of the collapse of another dam in Wisconsin, in which a town of 2000 inhabitants (Black Eiver Falls) was destroyed, the inhabitants, however, being warned in time to savo their lives. One of the greatest of the many disasters of tho sort in America was that which resulted in the loss of 2000 lives at Johnstown, in 18S9. An American journal, in discussing tho causo of tho disasters, remarked that it speaks well for tho engineering profession that calamities from tho collapse of dams are so infrequent when, wo consider tho number and magnitude of such constructions. At Black River Falls the dam itself stood the required strain, but the end docs not seem to have been properly protected, and the flood made a channel through tho hill there. At Austin, tho rock foundation upon which the dam rest-. Ed was evidently unstable. Though the dam was anchored eight feet deep, the water undermined it, the foundation slid, the' dam broke into seven sections, and parts of it were overturned. 'Whether tho blarno rests upon the engineer's designs, or' the contractor's materials, or the owner's'economy of funds, only a-careful official report and perhaps a court trial or two will reveal. But if there is no good reason to distrust the ability of our engineers or to belittle their wonderful triumphs over nature, there is, "tho Engineering News" thinks, reason to distrust tho present methods of protection against incompetence or greed in the construction of dam's. Speaking of the Austin disaster, it remarks: "It is not our duty to sift and apportion the responsibility for this sad calamity. It is our duty to say that tho occurrence is without excuse, and that if the dam had been built with proper precautions and proper regard for safety, the failure would never havo occurred." It goes on to remark that Johnstown and Austin and Mill River aro far from being tho only cases where terrible destruction has been wrought by ,a dam failure. "Smaller structures fail every little while and the general public hardly notices the item of a few line's in the newspapers that tell of lives lost and homes destroyed." These disasters occur, even when good engineers are employed, for the reason that "those_ who build these structures 'buy just as little engineering and buy it just, as cheaply as they possibly can.'" Twenty-two years ago, just after the Johnstown flood, it declared that it was necessary to establish State supervision over dams and dam construction in tho interest of the public. Vorv few States have heeded that warning. Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Colorado aro tho only ones that havo done so, so far as tho '.'Enginering News" knows. . ■