Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1899 — MANY MINERS MEET DEATH. [ARTICLE]

MANY MINERS MEET DEATH.

Terrible Explosion of Coal Damp at Carbonado, Wash. Eighty men went down into tunnel No. 7 of the Carbdn Hill Mining Company at Carbonado, Wash., and five hours later an explosion of coal damp took place. More tfcan thirty of this number are dead. Twenty maimed, burned and blinded survivors were drawn up, more dead than,alive. Those who w’ere not killed outright by the force of the explosion were hemmed in by falling walls, pinned down by splintered timbers and suffocated by the deadly fumes of black damp which immediately filled the mine. The explosion occurred between 10 and 11 o’clock, as near as can be ascertained. The men were gathering at the mouth of the tunnel preparatory for changing for the noon shift. There was an enormous rumbling sound, and then it ceased abruptly. The residents of the village knew the terrible meaning of this and hastened to the mouth of the pit. Great volumes of smoke and black damp were pouring from the mine. In addition to the eighty men in tunnel Jjlo. 7 there were hundreds of others in different levels, and it at once became apparent that they were in imminent peril from the black damp which would penetrate all the shafts. The men on the surface were unable to afford any assistance, but the mine bosses down in the bowels of the earth realized their peril and led all the men they could collect out'through the air shafts. It was nearly two hours before communication was opened up with the tunnel in which the explosion occurred.