Explosion Occurs As Train Reaches McDunn
Sun 6/30/2013
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Mauled and torn beneath a locomotive boiler that hurtled high into the air after an explosion, 16 men are dead and 43 others in a hospital tonight - eight likely to die. The huge boiler flew into the mist-filled air without warning as the men rode a work train to their jobs in the mountain top mine of the Elkhorn-Piney Coal company. "It was a terrible noise - then the men screaming, crying and shouting," said Mrs. Earl Morris whose house beside the tracks was wrecked by the blast. Her father, Steve Komas, sr., was killed; she and her two little boys barely escaped death when the top of the locomotive cab crashed into their bedroom. The train, four wooden coaches, had made its last stop as it chugged up the mountain to the mine with nearly 350 men aboard. It puffed into the little town of McDunn, miners talking and laughing as they waited for the locomotive to gain stream for the upward climb. "There was a big explosion - the front of the locomotive was thrown into the coach," said Charles Kitchen, 16, badly injured.
Contact/Location
Matt Keenan
CUSHING, WI
715.648.5000