Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1900 — KILLS 250 IN A MINE. [ARTICLE]

KILLS 250 IN A MINE.

EXPLOSION TRAPS WORKERS IN UTAH SHAFT, Not One Escapes to Give Facto of Dio aster—The Rescuers Recoypr Charred liodies of Many Victims Blasting Powder Believed to Be to Blame. r Two hundred and fifty lives were lost In an explosion In mines No. 1 and No. 4 of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company at Winterquarters camp, two miles north of Scofield, Utah. Every man in the two shafts was killed, not one escaping to give details of the disaster. At midnight 137 bodies had been recovered and rescue parties, made up of friends and relatives of the victims, were working in the leads in the vain hope that some might have lived through the accident. Help was sent from Colton, sixteen miles away, on the Uk> Grande Western Railway, and all possible was done to bring out the dead from the wrecked mines. The accidental igniting of blasting powder, of which a number of kegs were stored in mine No. 4, is believed to have been the cause of the disaster. This mine was die first to suffer and the explosion in shaft No. 1 followed almost immediately. • The supposition is that the flames were communicated to the second mine by a gallery which connects the two workings. All the dead taken out of No. 4 were burned and charred, showing that the fire must have swept like a wave through the entire shaft. In the other mine the bodies were not so seriously disfigured, death having come from suffocation. Many who were in the vicinity of the mouths of the shafts were Injured by the blast which issued from the openings. The buildings at the mouths were damaged seriously, and the whole country around trembled from the force of the explosion. The disaster occurred while the 250 men of the day shift were busy in the various galleries and not one who was inside had warning of the peril. Those outside saw flame and smoke burst from the openings, followed by a dull rumble, the tearing of timbers and crashing of falling masses of earth and rock and then all was silent. Immediately, from every direction, came mpn, women and children to whom the ominous sound could have only one meaning. It was some time before aught could be done and the wives, mothers aud children of those entombed in the awful death trap crowded to the entrance wailing and crying for their loved ones. News of the explosion Spread with lightning speed through Scofield, which is chiefly made up of families of employes of the coal company. Dispatches were sent to Colton, from which place a train with doctors and hospital supplies was hurried to the scene. As soon as possible the rescue work was begun, but the task was not rescue, only the bringing out of the dead that was before the terrorstricken workers. Despite peril from broken timbers and loosened masses of rock, the miners and trainmen entered the blackened shafts aud dragged to the light the mutilated corpses of their friends aud neighbors. Officials of the company are unable to explain the cause of the explosion. The mines were comparatively free of coal gas and it is said that an ordinary flame could not have caused the disaster. The story that an explosion of powder was responsible for the igniting of the gas and the awful havoc that followed seems borne out by the statements of all familiar with the interior of the workings.