The Workington Colliery Explosion

Two more deaths have occurred among the men injured by the explosion at St. Helen's Colliery, Workington, thus raising the total number of men killed to 30. The names thus added to the death-roll are Robert Hodgson, Flimby, and Joseph Robinson, Seaton. Of the 35 men who were at work in the mine when the explosion took place only five now survive. Dr. Ormrod, of Workington, whose heroic efforts at the head of the rescuing party have already been mentioned in The Times, states that the violence of the explosion was greater than that of any colliery explosion he had known, although his experience of such occurrences is large. The bodies of the men who were killed were most horribly mangled. Legs and arms were broken, feet were blown off, and in one instance the remains of one of the dead had to be gathered up in fragments and put in a sack. So frightfully were some of the bodies burned and torn that mistakes of identity were made in the first instance. Two such errors occurred in the official list originally published. Robert Hodgson, of Flimby (since dead), and William John Beattie, who were classed among those still in the mine were really lying in the infirmary ; and William Dixon and Launcelot Labourn, whose names at first appeared in the list of injured, have been transferred to the list of 17 men whose bodies are still in the mine. In addition to the 30 men 12 horsed were killed by the force of the explosion. A good supply of water having now been obtained, the work of flooding the mine is progressing satisfactorily.