COLLIERY DISASTER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 May 1938, Page 7

COLLIERY DISASTER

DEATH ROLL OF 72 IN BRITISH PIT

Explosion Entraps 123 Men

DESPERATE WORK BY RESCUERS

By Telegraph—Press Association. —Copyright. (Recd This Day, 9.55 a.m.) LONDON, May 10. An explosion at the Markham Colliery, at Duckmanton, as men of the night shift were coming to the surface entrapped 123 men and injured an unknown number, 49 of whom were taken to hospital. A second explosion at 8 a.m. led to a decision to seal up a section of the pit. Rescue brigades rushed to the scene and sixty stretchers were taken to the bottom of the pit. There is a known death roll of 20 and 60 are still entombed.

A rescue team of 100 men, equipped with tubes of oxygen is working desperately, aided by some of those who were rescued, while sobbing women and girls crowd at the pithead. They include Mrs Grainger, whose husband, son and two brothers-in-law are below. Her husband narrowly escaped death in the 1937 explosion, when nine men were killed. A late message state that the death roll is 72, including Mrs Grainger’s son. The bodies are so disfigured that only one hitherto has been identified.