Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1893 — LIKE RATS IN A TRAP. [ARTICLE]

LIKE RATS IN A TRAP.

Ten Lives Go Out In the Bowels of the Earth. One of the most distressing disasters that ever occurred in the anthracite region fbllowed the explosion of a lamp in the hands of a Hungarian employed In the Nelson colliery near Shamokin, Pa. The colliery, which is operated by J. Langdon & Co., is one of the largest and best known in the region, paying superior wages and furnishing work to its thousand employes the year around. Fire followed the explosion, and the smoke which rushed through the air shafts caught ten men who had gone to work in a vein above the scene of the explosion and smothered them to death. The day being a holiday there were not so many men at work as usual. Others for the same reason were late in reaching the mine, and it is owing to these fortunate facts that the death list is not very much larger. The fire started about twenty feet from the bottom of the slope, where there Is an oil-house, which is used by the men to change their working clothes for others before leaving the mines. About 6:50 in the morning a Hungarian was filling his lamD and it exploded, igniting the oil about h*m. He rushed from the oil-house and the flames spread with rapidity. Attempts were made to fight the fire, but those who started to co so were compelled to flee for their lives. They succeeded in reaching the bottom of the shaft and were hauled to the surface along with some belated miners who owe their lives to the fact that they did not go to work at their usual time. * The ten men who lost their lives were at work in the red ash vein, located nearly 10 i feet above where the fire broke cut. Through an airway from the lower vein to the red ash vein the smoke poured, suffocating the unfortunates like rats in a trap. Almost the entire town gathered in the vicinity of the burning mine, from the air passages of which great volumes of smoke were issuing. The scenes were most distress-, ing. The wives and children of the imprisoned men uttered agonizing cries and implored the men in the crowd to rescue their loved ones. ' Although the hardest kind of work was done, it was impossible for the volunteer force to extinguish the flames. Later orders were given to turn Carbon Run Creek into the mine. This w.ll

“ an y m o r e months £Xm- "4 forß the will be in 0011011 to It'S suae operations.