MINING DISASTER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2059, 10 December 1907, Page 2

MINING DISASTER.

ENORMOUS FORCE OF EXPLOSION. 85 BODIES RECOVERED. HEART-RENDING SCENES AT THE PIT MOUTH. FIVE ENTOMBED MEN RESCUED Jnitod Press Association —Copyright NEW YORK, Dec. 8. Eighty-five bodies have been recovered at Monongali. The explosion carried a block of concrete weighing a thousand pounds across tho river and embedded it in the hill-side. Officials believe that a blockage attlie entrance a few hundred feet beyond the main opening caused an interruption of tho ventilating .ystera, thus killing those entombed in a few minutes. Monongali has six thousand inhabitants. Throughout tlie night hundreds of men stood at the mouth of the pit. The women crowded the hillsides, finally crying themselves to sleep on the frozen ground. Five men have been rescued. All were injured and unable ro give details of the disaster. Parties of ten men each are working in short relays, owing to the accumulation of gases.

RECOVERY OF BODIES. 1000 MEN IN THE MINES. (Received Dec. 9, 10.7 0.m.) NEW YORK, Dec. 9. A hundred bodies have been recovered at Monongali, and scores more are visible among the wreckage. Oases prevent their recovery. Hundreds of coffins are piled at the pit’s mouth. It is whispered that there were 1000 men in the mines at the time of the explosion.