Dreadful Colliery Explosion

Shields, Thursday Morning.

A fearful explosion took place last night in Seghill colliery, about eight miles from this town. The colliery is situated in the heart of the steam coalfield and has extensive workings. About 11 o'clock the night shiftmen were down the pit, and 18 hewers and timber leaders and rolley lads were employed at the workings in a remote part of the pit known as Far California, when the gas appears to have fired at some of their lights, the explosion tearing down the main rolley way, but fortunately meeting with a volume of fresh air at the cross cut it expended itself there without doing any more serious mischief. The pitmen employed felt the shock of the explosion in others parts of the pit and flocked to the bottom of the shaft, where, as far as can be ascertained, they were got to bank in a short time in safety. The intelligence that the pit had fired soon spread through the extensive village, and hundreds of persons flocked to the pit mouth in wild excitement. Mr. Kettering, the head viewer, Mr. Sanderson, the under viewer, and other officials, gathered together and descended the mine, and relays of men were set on to clear away the rubbish occasioned by heavy falls from the roof in the main rolley way, which blocks up the passage to where the 18 men and lads are lying ; but the pit at that part has been found to be very foul with chokedamp, several of the men so employed in clearing away the obstruction having been brought to bank ill. At the time that our despatch left the pit the working parties had not reached the lost men and lads, and they are all supposed to be dead. Mr. T. E. Foster, the consulting viewer to the coal trade, had arrived when our report was coming away, and the men were being sent to bank from Burradon pit, which is connected with Seghill by a door, and when they are all to bank it will be opened. The explosion has taken place in the Low Seam. The men were mostly employed in the "broken," and that part of the colliery where the explosion took place was considered somewhat fiery. The air was close in the early part of last night, and afterwards there were high winds. Some suppose that these atmospheric conditions have had something to do with the explosion.

There is no doubt but that all the men who were working when the explosion occurred are dead. A father and son named Mills, George Jackson, Robert Rutherford, Thomas Weatherburn, and a man named Dodds are among the lost.

(By Electric And International Telegraph.)

Eleven men and lads have been got out of the pit alive. The following were killed :— Richardson, Robinson, John Nayland, Henry Whitehouse, Thomas Heaps, William Taylor, John Miller, and George Jackson. The bodies have all been recovered this afternoon.