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Show CAUSESJATALITIES Three Men Are Blown to Pieces in Rock Quarry at I Topliff. FLASH EXPLODES 150 KEGS OP BLACK POWDER Little Short of Miracle That Many Others Were Not Killed. Special to The Tribune. TOPLIFF, Utah, July 3. Thrco men wero blown to atoms and buried beneath be-neath thousands of tons of rock, and half a dozen others wore seriously and perhaps fatallj- injurod, while fiflcon more men narrowly escaped death, when a lightning flash struck and fused two littlo copper wires connected with 150 great casks of black powder, exploding the tremendous charge in a thirty-five-foot tunnel at tho American Limcrock qunrry, tho proporly of the American Smelting and Refining companj, between be-tween 4 and 5" o'clock this afternoon. The Dead. PATRICK CAMPBELL. P. P. BOWMAN. MATT REAGAN. Just a few minutes before the explosion explo-sion occurred fifteen other men had been passing the powder back haud-to-hand through the tunnel to the face of tho wall. Campbell, Bowman and Reagan wero working at the far end of the tunnel. They had just finished loading n charge of lot) kegs of black powder, and were tamping down the dirt behind the charge when the explosion occurred. The powder was connected with two small copper wires, which it was intended in-tended should be filial' attached to a little electric battery, situated several hundred yards up the 'hill from the quarry. A hea3' thunder slorm was raging, and frequently the sharp streaks of lightning liclced tho lowering clouds above the fated men, but they worked on, oblivious of the horrible t'atc that awaited them. Lightning Plays Havoc. Suddenly a fierce bolt of lightning shot from the sky and struck directly over the quarry. The burst of thunder which followed was drowned out of the hearing of the horrified spectators by the tremendous explosion of the powder in the tunnel. When the lightning struck it sought the line of least resistance to the earth 's center, and finding the t wo copper wires close together, fused them, completing the circuit and giving an electric shock a thousand times greater than was necessary to explode the charge. The awful roar could be heard ten miles, and the shock was terrific. Tt had been arranged that the powder pow-der should be set off br tho battery on the hill after the men had gone off shift. When the premature explosion occurred, the entire camp of Topliff rushed lo the scene, knowing that something some-thing had gone wrong. Hundreds of women and children crowded around the tunnel's smoking mouth, and it was impossible to pacify I hem. Some of the womon shrieked in madness mad-ness and lore their hair, while others laughed wildly. Back and forth they ran, screaming out Ihe names of their husbands, lovers, fathers or brothers. The scene was indescribably pathetic. Confusion Is Great. So great was the confusion that it was impossible to acquaint the crowd with the fact that only three men had been killed outright in the tunnel. The rescuers went to work like beavers beav-ers Hour after hour they t oiled through the murky night, the lurid lightning light-ning Tmrsling over the place of horror. As ten thousand tons of blasted rock in the mountain side covered the shattered shat-tered remains of the unfortunate quar-rymen, quar-rymen, it was impossible to recover more than one of the bodies, and this was picked out. in fragments, so that tlie pieces could not 'be identified. The name of the man, the fragments of whose body wero found, is therefore unknown. It is not believed that the other bodies bod-ies will be reached for many days, and it is possible that when the actual spot whore the- stood is reached, no recognizable recog-nizable remains will bo found. That the other fifteen men who had been passing the powder back escaped, is considered a miracle. Dr. Ilolbrook of Lehi started immediately imme-diately for tho scene of the explosion on being summoned and worked heroically hero-ically over the wounded. |