BOILER EXPLOSION.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2009, 2 August 1880, Page 4

BOILER EXPLOSION.

A few days ago (says the "Home News") & terrible boiler explosion took place at the Awsworth Colliery, near Ilkestone, by whioh several men were injured, and considerable damage done to property. It appears that there are four or five large boilers employed at the colliery for the purpose of working the engine for winding up the coal, &e., and on the morning of the explosion they wore working as usual, and under ordinary pressure, when one of them exploded with a loud re* port, heard for a considerable distance. The boiler, said to be about eleven tons in weight, was buret into fragments, whioh, together ■with the brickwork forming the engine-bed were thrown abont in all directions. A. large piece of the boiler was thrown a distance of twenty yards into a farmyard adjoining the collitry premises; another piece was thrown in the opposite direction about thirty yards on to a branoh railway, where it fell upon two of the metals and out them into several pieoes ; a third large portion «a< carried a distanoe of sixty over the branch railway and the Not-

tingham Canal, falling on land on the other aide. The end of the engine-house near the boiler was blown down, and considerable damage done to the engine, and the headstocks, with the winding apparatus over the mouth of the pit shaft, were thrown down, falling and doing considerable damage on the pit bank. The damage done to the walls near and to the other boilers was considerable, the general aspect of the place being one of destruction and wreok. The blacksmith's shop, which was near the boiler, was blown down, and a man who was in it was severely scalded. There were about 150 men in the underground portion of the mine, who could not be brought to the surface, the headstocks having been thrown down, but arrangements were made to bring them up, after being imprisoned several hours beyond their usual time. The damage is estimated at upwards of £IOOO.