|
|
GRAPHIC STORY
TOLD BY MINER WHO ESCAPED
Rocks, Boulders and trunks
of trees rolled in a huge wave on Doomed Buildings
-
"Well, I can tell you what
it was like all right, and tell you in just one word. But that
word won't let you put in your paper." said Mr. Harry Baxter
of Chathan Ont. A miner and a survivor of the dreadful landslide
at the Britannia mine on Sunday night.
-
"Yes sir," Baxter
continued, "it was just like that, meaning no disrespect to
Satan's home. Rocks and boulders and
trunks of trees rolled in a huge wave of noise and destruction
and showered down on the camp, cutting a wider path with each
foot of it's descent. Gosh! I'm glad to be alive! It doesn't seem
real, this dock, but I know I must be safe. I'm going to tell you
all that I can remember..."
-
"I can't spell his name
for you because I can't pronounce it. We called him Bill. Well,
Bill was a friend of the Germans. He was a good sort at that, we
all liked the big fellow, although we kidded him a lot. Sunday
night is always going to be "that night" to me. We
kidded Bill a good deal about the Germans. But at about half-past
ten, we quit and Bill went to his bunk. I went up to the house
where I slept. I am glad I did. If I hadn't gone, you wouldn't
have me to tell you this."
Thought Magazine Exploded
- "
I don't know what time it was exactly, but anyway around about
mid night, along came a terrific wind. It blew like the furies
and in about 2 seconds there was a noise which the boys thought
was 800 cases of explosives going off in the magazine.
-
I didn't think that it was the
magazine, because the glass panes in the windows did not crack,
and I was able to turn the light on. An explosion of powder would
have shattered things.
-
So we all got up, all a tremble
with excitement. Just then Jack Chisholm came rushing in. He had
on only a shirt. He said for me to lend him a pair of pants. I
handed him my overalls and Jack went out into the night again,
looking for the injured. It was as dark as a mountain of black
cats, and all about the place were pieces of bunk houses with
nails, tough edged boulders and things. The last time I saw Jack,
his feet and legs were bleeding from the many injuries he
received. But he was still going ahead with his rescue work.
Some of the boys found, their
candles. But it was a hard job to keep these candles lit. It was
blowing like the devil and what with the noise of earth still
slipping down the mountain and the cries of the injured and the
shouts of the rescuers, I can tell you it was a time to try our
nerves.
I
don't want to go back there. I know most all the boys. There must
have been about 130 of us working in the mine or out on top, as
the coal miners say. And it seemed to me that most of them were
killed or injured.
The
rocks and all the rest of it must have started from way up the
mountain side. I am not scientist enough to determine the cause,
but I guess it must have been caused by melting snow. Possibly a
tree might have been uprooted by a high wind, its roots tearing
loose would release the soil, and hit
by
hit this would run down the mountain side until eventually the
whole side would work loose and, gathering force with each yard of
its progress, sweep with terrific force over the camp.
The
cookhouse is gone. It must have been mushed flat, with all its
cooks and flunkeys inside it. I guess there must be 10 feet of
rocks and stuff above that place. The bunkhouses, two at least,
were carried away or shattered as they would be shattered by heavy
shelling.
God
knows how many poor miners have gone. You will have to get that
part from Mr. Dunahue or some other official of the company.
There
were many peculiar things about that slide. For instance, a gang
of men were coming out of the mine, off shift. They heard the
noise and stayed in the tunnel. The slide went by and the force of
the wind with it backed up into the level and knocked some of the
men flat on their backs.
The
slide buried up the mine office, the store, the cookhouse,
bunkhouses, the rockhouse, crusher, tramway terminal, with a big
part of the tramway itself, and leveled a number of smaller
houses. Owens' house, the
house
of a miner and his family, must be twice blessed. A great mass of
rock
rolled
down into a little depression and up the other side, stopping at
the
very
door of Owens' place.
The
work of rescue was a hard thing. We came to where Tom McCulla
lived. His wife and daughter were both killed. He was jammed in
between the timbers of his house with rocks piled all around. He
called to us, and we got him out. He asked us to help him get his
wife and daughter out. We found
them,
too they were both dead.
The
storekeeper, Mr. A.I.Starkey, and his wife were both killed,
buried among the clothing, the provisions and other things they
carried in the store. I think all of the cooks and flunkeys must
have been killed, though, of course, some of them may have escaped
by rocks or timbers arching over them.
It
was awful for us who escaped without a scratch. It must have been
terrible for the poor folks who died."
-
|
Today the work of rescue goes
steadily on. Survivors and men who went up from Vancouver for that
purpose, digging away at the great boulders and removing the
debris in a fever of haste. Every minute must be made to count for
the most possible work, for there are men, women and children
under the terrible wave of rocks and debris. Some of them may
still be alive.
