Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1878 — DEATH IN THE MINE. [ARTICLE]

DEATH IN THE MINE.

Detail* ot the Terrible Disaster in Wales. The full extent of the terrible disaster in the coal mine at Abercorne (says a cable dispatch from London), is now known. At half-past 2in the morning the flooding of the pit was commenced. At that hour the fire was within a short distance of the bottom of the shaft, and all hopes of further rescues had to be abandoned. When this decision was announced to the relatives of the 251 men still in the pit the scene was terrible beyond description. Thirteen additional bodies were recovered before the flooding of the pit began.

Abercorne colliery is the property of the Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron and Coal Company, one of the largest iron and coal proprietors in South Wales. It is situated a few hundred yards from Abercerne railway station, in the Western Valley section of the Monmouthshire railway. The pit, which is 300 yards deep, and one of the longest and bestworked in the district, was yielding 1,000 tons of steam coal daily. The machinery for winding, pumping and ventilating was of the best kind, and the use of safety-lamps in the mine was rigidly enforced. The cause of the explosion cannot even be surmised. Three detonations were successively heard on the surface. The frame works and castings of the pit were thrown to a height of 80(( feet alcove the m?>uth of the shaft. The colliery employed upward of 1,000 hands, of whom 373, taking their turn, or “shift,” went down at 11 o’clock in the morning. Twenty-one of this number came up at noon, up to which time nothing had occurred to create a suspicion of danger. At 2:30 p. m. a loud rumbling noise was heard, quickly followed by a flash of flame from the pit’s mouth, and a column of smoke, dust and debris ascending high in the air. The explosion damaged the winding-gear, thus destroying the only means of communication with the men in the pit. As soon as the gearing could be repaired, working parties were sent down the shaft, and eighty-two men and boys, working within a few hundred yards of the shait, were rescued; but it became evident, as the attempts were made to advance into the workings, that little hope could be entertained of any life surviving. About 400 yards from the bottom of the shaft are stables, and here fourteen horses were found dead. Beyond this point the explorers could not go, on account of the impurity of the air and the prevalence of choke-damp. Volunteer explorers succeeded in bringing out ten or twelve men very much burnt, also seven dead bodies, but it is feared that no others can be for the present got at, in consequence of the fire extending, and there remains no reasonable hope that any further lives will be saved.