AFTER AN EXPLOSION.
An opportunity was recently afforded us of exploring the workings of a colliery in which, a day or two previously, an explosion had occurred. Commonly, the results of these catastrophes are so widespread, and the havoc they cause is so tremendous, that it is impossible to take a calm survey of the separate effects of fire and concussion: all is mere ruin and confusion. But in this particular instance the area affected had been very limited; and so little damage had been done to the roofs and roads, that it was safe and easy to investigate the way in which the imprisoned forces had effected their deadly purpose; for nearly half the men at work in the vein of coal had been killed, and, of the rest, several narrowly escaped with their lives. And yet the mine had always been considered a perfectly safe one; no death from fire-damp had ever before happened; and, with the full approval of the government inspectors, naked lights had always been used. All at once, without any warning, the lightning-swift flame darted forth, none knew whence, and many a miner’s home was filled with desolation and sorrow.
We were, of course, provided with safety-lamps before we reached the branch road which leads to the workings where so lately such awful scenes had been enacted. Even here, nearly two hundred yards away, we were shown a hole which had been blown through eighteen inches of solid masonry; and were told that two men who were at the outside of this wall had been severely burned, one of them, after lingering for a week, having succumbed to the injuries received. Just round the corner, only a few yards away, we saw the ghastliest sight of all that met our eyes in this memorable round. A dark stain on one of the upright supports of the roof marked the place where a man’s head had been crushed by a loaded tram, which the concussion of air had lifted off the rails and dashed against the hapless trammer. Nothing could give one a more vivid conception of the terrific force of these gaseous explosions, and of the enormous expansion of air which they occasion.
But we proceed along the level road through which so recently that fiery blast rushed, and reach the door which opens into the actual scene of the disaster. It was from this point that the gallant band of rescuers—who in such emergencies are always ready to risk their lives in helping others—carried on their operations. Outside this door, all was safe after that one momentary onrush of flame was over. Inside lay the deadly choke-damp, hardly less fatal than the fire itself. Yet, for all that, one by one the injured colliers were carried hither and placed in the freer air. Then the heroic searchers bore out also the bodies of the dead; and not till then, yielded to the numbing, stifling influence of the poisonous vapours, which left them aching and ill for days.
What a contrast to all this was the quietude of these deserted workings as we saw them! Save for such repairs as were needed to restore proper ventilation, nothing had been touched; and, strewn on the ground, as they had been taken off by their owners—since dead, or, it might be, struggling for life—lay the coats and other garments discarded as too cumbersome to work in; while from the roof hung the miners’ ‘tommy-bags,’ containing their day’s food. One had fallen on to the ground, and the mice had got at it. After biting a hole through the covering, they had gnawed away all the crumb out of a huge hunch of bread. Where, one wondered, could these tiny creatures have taken refuge from fire and suffocation? Mysterious indeed! Not a singe, not even the smell of fire, on these trivial things; and yet, hereabouts, a man was found fearfully scorched, his clothes literally torn off him by a tornado of flame!
Passing on to a heading where several men met their death, we noticed one larch-post out of which the resin had been drawn by the intensity of the heat; while everywhere, one side of the props was coked over by the rush of burning coal-dust, which had been driven furiously along, now in one direction, now in another; and yet, among it all was a pale-green shoot sprouting from an ash-pole in the roof, turning upwards, as if some instinct taught it that that way shone the sunlight—even though a quarter of a mile of rock lay between!
Another example of the incomprehensible manner in which these fatal forces act. A door which opened inwards, and so offered full resistance to the concussion, was smashed into splinters; and yet, twenty yards farther on, a miner was at work with a candle in his cap; and this was not blown out, nor was the man at all hurt! This particular doorway, the door being fortunately demolished, let in a quantity of pure air, and so the lives of a number of men who were in that level were saved. One specially touching incident occurred here. Two men and a boy started to crawl to a place of safety, following, with their hands, the rails as a guide in the darkness. The road they took is in the shape of a Y. When they reached the fork, two of them took the right turning, and escaped unscathed. The third man went to the left, and wandered on till, in the very thickest of the afterdamp, he sank down and died. There he was found, as soon as it was possible to penetrate through the smoke and heavy fumes, with that placid look on his face which all those wear who are suffocated by carbonic acid gas. One of the explorers explained that, in this poisonous atmosphere, he felt himself failing, and yet, though he knew perfectly what was in store for him if he sank down, could not resist the pleasant stupor that was creeping over him. He was dragged away to pure air just in time.
Our guide tried, with his testing-lamp, all round the place for gas; but only once, in a hole in the roof of the highest level, did a tiny blue cap within the wire-gauze demonstrate the lingering presence of that explosive vapour. This fact may to some extent explain the unwillingness of the workmen to use safety-lamps. Such is the ignorant prejudice which prevails among them, and so true is it of them, as of all people engaged in hazardous occupations, that familiarity breeds contempt for danger. They were perfectly ready to go down with candles, but not with lamps, to which they had never been accustomed. But we owe too much to these toilers underground, to indulge in harsh criticism of their conduct. As the poor fishwife described her herrings, so we may call the coals which blaze upon our hearths, ‘the lives of men.’
From this account of what, after all, was but a slight explosion, one may perhaps more readily realise the awfulness of those more extensive disasters, which, with equal suddenness and mystery, plunge whole districts into bitterest grief and direst want. If any stimulus to sympathy and practical charity were required, it would but be needful to stand, as we did, among that eager crowd which, at the tidings of evil, thronged round the pit top; and to see those agonised women who were weeping for their sons or husbands, and ‘would not be comforted, because they were not.’ But the hearts of Englishmen ever beat fast, and their hands are always open, when they are asked to help the ill-fated colliers’ widows and orphans—‘after an explosion.’