Disastrous Colliery Explosion.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 32, 7 August 1894, Page 2

Disastrous Colliery Explosion.

ALIVE. A despatch from Pontypridd, country of (Glamorgan (Wales), say* a terrible explosion took place on June 23rd, in , the Albion colliery. Two hundred miners were buried beneath the debris of the mine. ' ; ' It is estimated that eighty miners;' were killed either by the exploeioo^or by the falling earth and rock. Several parties of volunteers in the work of < rescue descended into the pit. Every possible effort was made to save the r imprisoned miners who were yet aliyo and to rescue' the bodies of the dead . v The whole population of Gttlynd" and hundreds of persons from Pbntypridd and other places in the vicinity '. gathered about the mouth of tUepit^ anxiously awaiting for .news from the - mine. , : -" A dozen or more boys were among the number entombed. Late at night some of the rescuer* came to the apfrface and reported they had penetrated . 100 yards into the mine and found five men alive but badly injured. Of course no information could be given > them, as the mine officials did not ' know the names of the killed, and many of the bodies were so badly' burned that identification by , the . rescuing party under the dim light of their lamps was impossible. The five 8 men were brought up the shaft as* Boon' as possible, and the doctors who were • present did all in their power toalle* viate their sufferings. Shortly after the five live men were brought up, the bodies found near them were raised to the surface and placed in a shed near the mouth of the pit. Here several of them were identified by their clothing. While the crowd was assembled about the shed twenty men and boys in a semi-con-scious condition were brought , up. They had apparently not been injured by the explosion, but had inhaled the after damp. Had they not been foundwhen they were there is no doubt they would all have been suffocated. More bodies were discovered and "- brought out after midnight Many of them were 90 terribly scalded that the flesh almost fell from them, and they bad to be handled most carefmlly. It is more than probable that a large I percentage of the dead will never be identified.