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Show Two Explosions in the East Brookside Colliery of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company Near Tower City. FIVE OUT OF SIX RESCUERS DEAD Descend Into the Shaft After the First Blast and Are Caught by the Second; Doctors Rushed Rush-ed to the Scene From Nearby Towns. TO WEB CITY, Pa., Aug. 2. Eight-een Eight-een men wore killed and two seriously injured in a double explosion in the East Brookside mine of the Philadelphia Philadel-phia and Reading Iron company, caused by what is supposed to have been dynamite dy-namite and gas. Thirteen men died in the first explosion ex-plosion and five went to their death in the second blast, after an heroic attempt at-tempt to rescue the first victims. One of the rescuers escaped. The Dead. DANIEL M. G-INU3Y, aged 48, Tower Tow-er City, leaves n wife and seven children. chil-dren. HENRY MUEPHY, 50, fire boss, Tower City, wife and three children. HENRY FARRELIi, i9, foreman, Tower City, wife and ten children. HOWARD HAND, 21, laborer, of Muir, single. HARRY HAND, 24, miner, Muir, wife and throe children. JACOB KOPENHAVER, 26, shaft man, Roinerton, wife and two children. THOMAS EEHNY, 30, miner, Rein-erton, Rein-erton, wife and two children. JOHN ENDISE. OARRENI OAMPANI. VICTOR SEANE. CEVEDIA GROZIANO. Two of the dead have not been recovered. re-covered. , They are: DANIEL FARLEY, 42, fire boss, Tower City, wife and Bix children. JOHN FESSLER, 40, miner, Tower City, wife and two children. Three Rescued Alive. It is not known what caused tho explosions, ex-plosions, but tho miners at the colliery are Inclined to tho belief that tho first explosion wa that of dynamite and tho second waa caused by gas which had boon liberated by the dynamite explosion. The dead wore scattered about for a distance of about a quarter of a mile. Only three men were taken out allvo and one of theBe died on the way to the hospital. Superintendent John Lorenz, 60 years old, was in the mine when the first ox-plosion ox-plosion occurred. Ho waa rescued several sev-eral hours later. Henry Scltoffstall waa another taken out allvo. Both wore burned and bruised, but are expected to recover. Superintendent Ixrens waa found cTawllns alonjj tho ground trying to make hla way through tho debris to safety. It la poosiblo tha.t tho real story of the explosion may nover bo known, as all who wore In a position to know woro killed. While Superintendent Ijorenz waa In tho mine at tho time of tho flrat explosion, ex-plosion, ho was about 600 feet from It, and It is not thought that ho known the cause. Ho la not In condition to talk. Killed in Three Ways, "While the Impression scorns to be that tho first explosion was that of dynamlto, It ia alao po.Htlble that It might havo been duo to gas. Tho men woro killed In three different ways. Some of them, were violently hurled against tho side of the tunnol in which they were working and crushed, some were burned to death by tho explosion of gas and others wore suffocated by tho nfter-damp which always al-ways follows an explosion In the mines, All but five of tho men killed were readily Identified. The othor flvo had no relatives in the vicinity. With a few exceptions, all of tho foreign workmen were brought here from a distance. Tho East Brookside colliery employs about BOO men. It Is situated on tho top of tho mountain about two miles west of Tower. City and within tho same distance dis-tance of a half dozen othor little mining town3 in tho Williams valley. Tho colliery col-liery olosed down Thursday ovenlng for the week, but Charles Portland, a mining contractor, who has a contract with the Reading company to drive a tunnel, kept some of his men at work. There wore half a dozen muckers at work whose duty It is to load the debris blown down by tho blasts which are fired at night. There wa3 nlso a mucker boss and a blacksmith nnd his helper. AH were at work In the tunnel, which is nbout a vuarter of a mile from the slopo entrance to the mines. Superintendent Lorenz nnd Mine Boss t (Continued on Pago Eight) EIGHTEEN KILLED I Mil DISASTER (Continued from Page One.) Farrell were In the mine making an in-specion in-specion of some new work which was to bo done and were about COO feet from the tunnel in which Italian workmen wer6 engaged. It was shortly before noon when the men on the surface heard a rumbling noise and from the mouth of the slope and from tho air passageway passage-way at the fanhouse there camo clouds of dust. The outside men know in an instant that there had been a bad explosion ex-plosion and a rescue party was quickly organized. The party was composed of Ginley, Murphy, SclioffsLihl. Bonny, Kopennavcr and Howard Hand. Tho six rescuers were lowered in the slope, a depth of 1200 feet at a pitch of SO degrees, down to the fifth level next to the bottom of the mine. It is judged that the second explosion occurred oc-curred about twenty minutes after tho first. The rescuers had time lo walk about 600 feet from tne mouth of tho slope, where they were found dead. Five of tho foreign workmen were found dead In one pile in the tunnel. A number of men were at work on the lift above the one where the tunnel was being driven and the concussion blew out the lights on their caps. As soon as the nature of the accident became known word was sent to the officials of-ficials of the Philadelphia & Reading Coal &. Iron company at Potlsvllle and they sent the mine rescue car to the scene. Fortunately the mine was not set afire, but the rescuers were retarded awhile by the blocked passageways, due to the sides and roof being torn down. They made their way with the greatest difficulty. The first rescued wore the members of the rescuing force who had gone to the relief of the victims of tho first explosion. Doctors Summoned. Doctors from all parts of the region were summoned and two of them descended de-scended into the mine to give relief at the bottom of the slope. Tho Ilrst aid corps, which had also been summoned from the nearby collieries, were on hand to take caro of tho injured, but only three were found to be cared for and one of them died within half an hour after being taken out. Ambulances summoned to care for the injured were used to take tho dead to an undertaking establishment-After establishment-After a futile search of about eight hours for the bodies of Fessler and Farley, Far-ley, the mine officials were inclined to the belief thai two of the unidentified dead might be these two. in which event the toll might be reduced to sixteen. Some of the officials were still hopeful that they might have escaped by making mak-ing their way through an old working. There was a rumor to this effect, but it was not given much credit. Dynamite in Mine. When the contractors' force went into the tunnel this morning they took with them -175 pounds of dynamite. At 9 o'clock rescuing parties came out after a futile search and gave it as their opinion that both Farley and Fessler were both dead. They encountered encoun-tered a wall of rock which they believed be-lieved to be about fifty feet long and they think that tho two men were caught and buried underneath this. It is now certain that the body of Fessler Fess-ler has not been recovered as a peculiar pecu-liar formation of his hands is not identified iden-tified on any of the porsons whose bodies bod-ies wero recovered. Reports said that rapping had .been heard inside the walls but officials give out that they believe the men cannot be alive. "When the rescuing force explored the affected section of the mine tney found most of the mules alive, although they were close to the explosion. Thev did not appear to be in.iured in the least, beyond a singeing of the hair. One theory of the explosion is that when the muckers were cleaning up the debris, their shovels struck a piece of unexplo'ded dynamite and set off the 175 pounds which the men had taken into the mine with them. |