COLLIERY EXPLOSION

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 452, 8 March 1890, Page 4

COLLIERY EXPLOSION

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MEN KILLED. London, February 6. An explosion occurred on February 6th in the colliery at Abersychan, Monmouthshire. Three hundred miners were imprisoned for several hours. An opening was finally effected, and at noon 200 men had been rescued. A number of those taken out were severely injured. The rescuing parties are stdl searching for those remaining in the mine. It is feared that it will be impossible to rescue the miners who are still imprisoned. I orty bodies have been taken from the mine. Fifty miners are still imprisoned, and it is not known whether they are dead or alivo. The cause of the explosion was the flooding of the pits adjacent to that in which the explosion occurred, thus forcing the gas into the pit where work was in progress and where it was ignited. The explosion had a tremendous force, being heard a mile away. The first party of rescuers organised endeavoured to penetrate the pit through the old workings. They got far enough to be able to see the groups of dead, but they could not reach them and were compelled to retreat by the suffocating volume of smoke. Upon the first appearance of a diminution in the volume of smoke the rescuers went down the main shaft. They rescued a large number of miners yet alive, but all were badly burned, and they brought out sixty dead bodies, nearly all so mutilate! that recognition is impossible. The latest estimate of the dead is 150.