Explosion in a Colliery.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 38, 14 August 1893, Page 2

Explosion in a Colliery.

150 MINERS ENTOMBED. 110 BODIES RECOVERED. (PEB PBKSB ASSOCIATION). Auckland. August 12. An explosion occurred at Ingram's Colliery, Stomahill. Yorkshire, on July 4, which led to the entombment of 150 miners. The day shift went to work as usual in the morning, and all went well until noon, when the workers at the pit's mouth were startled by a muffled explosion, and clouds of dense smoke came rolling up the main shaft. The pit managers at once organised a party and descended slowly through the smoke. They were driven back repeatedly, and eventually gave up their purpose of penetrating to the workings before four days had elapsed. After taking up the bodies found at the bottom of the shaft, the rescue party waited for several hours before making another descent. About the middle of the evening they went down again, the gas having cleared off from the near shaft, and they were able to examine part of the workings. The bodies of miners lay in heaps. Many were sent to the surface. About 110 operatives were dead. Eight men and a boy, all told, were rescued alive from the mine. All hope for the others in the pit is abandoned. The usual cause is assigned for the casualty, namely carelessness in opening a lamp.