Tank's Poetry
|
united states mine rescue association
|
Tank's Poetry |
|
From the Google News Archives:  (news links open in a separate window)
Explosion Kills Eight Tyrone Daily Herald, Pennsylvania November 16, 1905 The dead:
They were building a concrete water ring or ditch 50 feet down the shaft in order to catch dripping water. About five minutes after the men descended a terrific explosion occurred, which blew huge pieces of timber out of the mine like skyrockets as high as 150 feet into the air. The tipple and all the mine rigging were torn down and debris scattered in heaps all around. A shovel which lay at the top of the shaft was hurled with such violence that it sank four inches into a plank. What must have befallen the seven men down in the shaft is terrible to contemplate. It is believed that they were instantly killed and probably fell to the bottom of the shaft. John McCatey, on the outside, was killed by the falling tipple, and others were seriously, though not fatally, hurt. Mine Inspector Harry O. Loutein believes the explosion was caused by fire damp. He believes the gas came upward and reached the miners' lamps just as it was at the explosive point. But as it would have been practically impossible for safety lamps in working order to ignite the gas, it is a mystery what actually did ignite it. There must have been some kind of open light used. An ordinary miners' torch badly battered, was found near the mouth of the shaft, and this tends to show that someone disobeyed orders and carried a lighted torch into the shaft. |
|
