APPALLING COLLIERY ACCIDENT DEATH OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN PERSONS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 40, 3 April 1862, Page 6 (Supplement)

APPALLING COLLIERY ACCIDENT DEATH OF TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN PERSONS.

While all cheerful English households have been adding to their cheerfulness by heaping up the fires that make a pleasant contrast t(T the to the cold outside, a terrible tragedy has oceurcd in one of the great northern coal-fields. At 10 o’clock on the morning of Thursday, January IG, more tnan ~00 men and boys were buried alive in the heart of the earth ; 70 fathoms below the sail. The scene of this most horrible event, the Hester or Hartley New Pit, lies a little to the west of the Plyth and Tyne junction, on the coast of Northumberland. The pit is so near to the coast that from the flooding to which it is liable it was feared that tiie sea had been “ struck and to overcome this difficulty an unusual lorce of pumping machinery was employed. Tins machinery was erected at the mouth of the shaft—unfortunately the only means of communication between the surface and the extensive works below. The shaft itself is of large dimensions—l2 feet in diameter, and it was secured from top to bottom by wood-work called brattice. About 31 iafboms Irom the top is the entrance to the uppermost scam or gallery, known as the high main. Nearly <lO fathoms lower a second gallery, called the yard seam, is entered. Still lower, at the immense depth of 100 fathoms from the month of the shaft, is vet another scam, the only one which, is liable to*inundation. An air shaft which had been sunk from the middle to the lowermost seam was capable of containing a ladder, and therefore afforded a temporary-means of bodily communication between the second and third seams.

On ihe clay and at tlie hour named (here were no less than 215 men and lads down in llic lowest of the seams, and there were five men in the shaft ; strong healthy follows, the bone and sinew, the prop and stay, of the villages around. There was no negligence, for in work so perilous as this,

where the lives of all hang upon the slightest action, no one trilies. No precaution had been omitted.. The whole machinery .-went steadily. The hive below was working in security. No one, wo may be sure, thought of danger from the massive iron beam which stretched across the pit, and raised to the surface the subterranean water. .But. suddenly one of those mysterious actions which will sometimes take place bimetals, which causeawatchsping to snap in a frosty night, or an axletr'ee to' break like glass without any appreciable extra friction, operated upon that great, beam.. There is no proof that it was faulty, yet it parted, and in a moment a mass of forty tons was hurled down tho shaft, gathering force and velocity as it fell, sweeping away the stages, the props, and the lining of the shaft, crushing the five men who were coming to the surface, and carrying all down with it in a mass of ruin to the bottom. - Tho timber and planking which lined the pit being torn away the sides in many places collapsed, and what had been a safe, open passage, was the next moment densely choked for many hundred feet deep. And j the 215 men and boys wore in the passages below, cut ofl’from all communication with the upper world, while the water was fast pouring into those ; passages, —pouring 1500 gallons per minute. ; The agony and terror caused in the neighborhood, J as the nature of the catastrophe became known, j cannot be described. Little relief of feeling— 1 scant gleams of hope or consolation —were to bo had from the report of the brave adventurers who went down when the suffocating dust had a little . subsided. Nearly half the depth of the shaft was; found to be choked up. As only half a dozen I men could work at a time in the arduous task of I removing the stones, timber, and earth, it seemed j from the first but too probable that a considerable 1 time must needs be consumed in getting to the | bottom. If the imprisoned had failed, from any reason, to reach the middle seam, through the air staple, their rescue, it was well known would behopelcss. They would perish of suffocation, hungci, or drowning before help cotdd arrive. But in the event of their having passed up the ladder before overtaken by foul air or inundation, it would still clearly take many hours to open for them a way of escape. Nevertheless, the rescue of the men could not he regarded as wholly impracticable. Erom Thursday, the Kith, till Wednesday, the 22nd, sinkers were employed night and day to clear a passage. Faint glimpses of hope were afforded during the first four days by signs of life which proceeded from the mine, but these signs died away at last. When, on the 22nd, all difficulties had been overcome, aud an entrance effected, not a living man remained of those who went down full oflife and strength on the IGth. Even after the opening of the shaft had in a measure purified the air below, those who first volunteered to go down and ascertain the appalling truth were with dilliei-’ty able to go through (heir task, so severely were they affected by the gas which had accumulated. When two of the principal persons connected with the colliery, made a tour of tho works below, they met everywhere dead bodies, even in (heir death telling a tale of devotion that is most ctfecting. “Families are lying in groups ; children in tho arms of their fathers ; brothers with brothers.” Of sonic little consolation is tho assurance that “most of them looked placid, as if asleep,” apparently denoting (hat the more horrible details of a death bv starvation bad been avoided by a more certain, swift, and merciful deprivation oflife deprivation oflife through the foulness of the atmosphere. But while this was the case of tho great majority there were exceptions, for we are told that “ higher up, near (he furnace, some tall stout men seem to have died hard.” Their strength apparently but served to prolong their agony. They seem to have been spared the protracted horrors of death by starvation. For although the corn-bins filled for the use of the horses employed in the mine were cleared out, com was found in the pockets of some of the men, and a pony which it was hoped would furnish food enough to help to maintain the buried men for some days, was not touched, havin'* been found dead from the same cause as the men. The last noise—the“jowling”—from within was heard on Sunday, the 19th, and as this, in all likelihood proceeded from the tall stout men up near the furnace, who died the hardest, the probability is that the rest were mercifully released from their suiferings before that time. While the operations of the disentombers were going forward, what must have been the feelings ofthe agonised relatives and friends who crowded day and night about tho mouth of the pit ? It •would be impossible to conceive a more harrowing spectacle than that presented during the past week at the Hartley coal-fields. Wives mothers, and children exposed to (he most inclement weather this winter has as yet brought, counting the weary hours, and as day lapsed into day disparingly clinging to (he vain hope (hat all might yet be well.

The English public already recognises two duties with reference to this terrible event. The first is, to do what can bo done to alleviate the misery of the unhappy families whom it affects, and the next is to see, as far as passible, that the like does not occur' again. Foremost with her sympathy has been her Majesty the Queen, who, even in the depth of her own sorrow, shows her anxiety for these poor people. Upon the second point, it is perhaps, too soon to speak. Thu inquest will inform us fully of the efficiency of the apparatus for the protection oflife in the Hartley Colliery Works. As far as wo are informed at present, there is no ground for condemnation as regards the presence of the ordinary safeguards and precautions. But on one point a hint has been given which we hope to see bear practical fruit. It is observed that every coal mine should have two shafts, so that if one becomes choked up from any cause, the other would still bo available for the protection of life. Wo learn that until lately no access from any one of the three scams in the Hartley pit to another existed, except through the great shaft. ]S T ot long ago, upon the representation of the Government inspector, the air staple, of which mention has been made above was sunk between the middle or yard seam and and the lower working ; and it was by this passage that the unfortunate victims escaped upwards from the rising water. Why was not an air staple also sunk from the seam, or high main, to the yard scam?. If such a passage had existed,

tho men could have escaped into that portion of the shaft .which was above tho debris, and free to the pit mouth.