TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 959, 4 August 1903, Page 2

TERRIBLE EXPLOSION.

IN COAL MINE. HUNDREDS OF LIVES LOST. SOME PITIFUL SCENES. (By Telegraph.) Per B.M.S. Sonoma at Auckland. San Francisco, July 16,

A despatch from Hanna, Wyoming) dated June 30, announces that an explosion of fire-damp snuffed out the lives of 234 men and injured scores of others, and also destroyed a vast amount of property. Those not hilled outright were buried alive. The explosion was heard for miles around the vicinity, and people hurried to the scene. Huge timbers and railroad iron were hurled from the mouth of the shaft a distance of several hundred feet. The superintendent and a largo force of men went to work with a will to remove the debris and release the entombed miners. Progress was delayed by foul gases, but in a few hours forty-five men were taken out alive. The Hanna coal mines are very valuable, but the oco where the explosion occurred has long been considered dangerous. It has twenty j six entries and fifteen miles of workings, A fine system of ventilation was in use, but it is suppossd some miner left a lamp uncovered. Members of the rescuing parties tell of pitiful scenes below tho ground. Some survivors were driven insane, and fought like fiends against their rescuers. Dazed men were sitting listless on the cars, or lyiDg on the floor careless of whether they livc-d or died. A few bodies only could be removed, and flames broke out on July Ist, putting an end to all attempts to recover the bodies.