An electrical outage earlier that week had forced the workers to light kerosene lanterns and torches.

[4] Shortly after noon, a coal car filled with hay for the mules caught fire from one of the wall lanterns.

The two shafts were then closed off to smother the fire, but this had the effect of both cutting off oxygen to the miners and allowing the “black damp,” a suffocating mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, to build up in the mine.

The seventh trip, however, proved fatal when the cage operator misunderstood the miners' signals and brought them to the surface too late - the rescuers and those they attempted to rescue were burned to death.

[3] One group of miners trapped in the mine built a makeshift wall to protect themselves from the fire and poisonous gases.

Although without food, they were able to drink from a pool of water leaking from a coal seam, moving deeper into the mine to escape the black damp.