PITTSBURG, Nov. 28.--Two hundred and seventy-five men, a majority of them Americans, are believed all to have perished in an explosion which wrecked the mine of the Pittsburg-Buffalo Coal Company at Marianna, Washington County, shortly before noon to-day. Marianna is considered the model mining town of the world, and the mine itself was claimed to be as nearly perfect in equipment as modern science could devise.
Since the blast entombed all the men in the mine, smoke has been issuing from the shaft, showing that the workings are afire, and rescuers who entered were compelled, after progressing only a short distance, to retreat on account of the intense heat.
The explosion happened at 11:30 o’clock this morning, when the full force was at work. The explosion was terrific, and if all in the mine were not mangled by its force, it seems certain that they perished in the subsequent fire or were suffocated by the deadly fumes.
The force of the explosion can be imagined when it is known that the heavy iron cage which carried the men from the surface to the workings was blown 300 feet away from the mouth of the shaft. Two men who were in the cage at the time were killed, the head of one of them being blown off.
Three foreigners who were at the mouth of the mine when the explosion occurred are in the hospital in a critical condition from injuries received when the mine cage was blown out of the shaft. They also inhaled the poisonous fumes.
The fanhouse was partly demolished and the fans stopped for over an hour.
The explosion was in shaft No. 2. The only way to reach the workings is through that shaft, as shaft No. 1 is not completed. Some of the officials of the coal company believe it will be necessary to dig through 800 feet of solid coal before they can reach the workings.
State Mine Inspector Louttit and Mine Foreman Kennedy had just completed a two days’ examination of the mine, and had come from the mine only three minutes before the explosion occurred.
When the town was shaken by the blast, all the people rushed from their houses. Learning of the extent of the disaster, the members of the families of the doomed men rushed to the mouth of the mine, and a pathetic scene followed. Wives, mothers and relatives of the men are gathered about, and their cries are pitiful.