MANY LIVES LOST
From Our Own Correspondent. Plymouth, Tuesday Night. It is feared that about thirty lives have been lost in a terrible mine disaster which occurred at Levant Mine, near the Land’s End, on Monday. At the time of wiring only ten bodies have been recovered. The cause of the disaster was the breaking of the Man engine, the only one of its kind in use in any of the mines of the world. It has been at the Levant Mine for over seventy years. It runs to a depth of three hundred fathoms on a big wooden rod, and is propelled up and down by a twelve-foot stroke. At every twelve feet there is a stationary platform, and the mechanism resolves itself into an up-and-down movement of a gigantic ladder which takes the men in both directions.
At the time of the accident from 100 to 120 men were on the engine. The rod seems to have broken when the engine was at the top of a stroke, and the whole mass fell just as the men were stepping upon their various platforms. Rescue men state that the heavy rod came down with a sickening crash, sweeping away the ladders and platforms on which the men were standing. Some of the miners were struck down by the falling timber. One was isolated for about twenty hours before he was rescued. It is thought that the injured number twenty.
The manager of the mine, Captain Ben Nicholas, said the section of the gear where the accident occurred was new not long since. It was inspected and oiled daily. Immediately the accident became known an appeal for help was made, and the response was wonderful.
Most of the men were able to reach the surface, and some of them quickly established communications with their homes, after which they pluckily returned to assist in the rescue work. Some of the miners who were in the accident, but escaped injury, actually remained underground to do what they could to help. Organised rescue parties were hastily arranged, and they established ladder ways to enable men to be got out.
One of the rescuers stated that as soon as they got into the shaft they found men lying about injured. Those slightly injured were sent to the surface, but others could not be moved for some time. They eventually established vocal communication with men who were isolated, and these were rescued by constructed ladders.
Help came from all the neighbouring mines, and miners flocked to the scene of the disaster. One of those who went down into the mine was a vicar, and another who helped as a stretcher-bearer was the United Methodist minister.