Look Back: Four miners saved, four killed in 1931 Mocanaqua coal mine explosion

Rescuers worked night and day for six consecutive days to reach six entombed miners in the East drift of the Red Ash vein of the West End Coal Co. mine in Mocanaqua during the last week of October 1931.

A gas explosion dropped hundreds of tons of coal and rock into a coal seam opening about 2,000 feet below the surface and 500 feet from the face of the gangway late Saturday night on Oct. 26, 1931. Two miners, Gabriel Skviak, 45, and John Tagmani, 35, both of Mocanaqua, were immediately pulled from the doomed mine and taken to Nanticoke State Hospital for severe burns to their faces, hands and arms.

There was hope steel timbers that replaced aging and rotting wood timbers survived the blast, creating pockets in the coal seam where it was believed the entombed miners took refuge.

“Several years ago, West End Coal Co. installed steel girders instead of wooden timbers in certain sections of the caved area. If these were not shattered, opinion was expressed that rapid progress would be made during the night in reaching the men,” reported the Wilkes-Barre Record on Oct. 26, 1931.

Families of the entombed miners and hundreds of anxious relatives gathered at the site on the wind-blown mountainside while rescue squads worked feverishly to determine if the men were alive or dead. Several of those who gathered prayed out loud while holding candles.

Three rescue crews each with 30 men worked eight hour shifts.

As efforts to reach the trapped miners continued, a forest fire erupted nearby on the mountainside that was battled by two of the three rescue crews during their rest period.

“Company officials said that crews are working from two directions; that good progress was being made but that they had no idea how close the rescue squads might be to the spot where the men are believed to have been trapped,” the Record reported Oct. 29, 1931.

Rescue crews finally reached the six men, finding two survived and four were killed, just before 6 a.m. on Oct. 30, 1931.

John Tomashunis, 40, of Shickshinny, father of seven children, and Joseph Motzoni, 22, of Mocanaqua, were lifted from their mine prison and taken to Nanticoke State Hospital.

“While relatives and friends of Tomashunis and Motzoni were rejoicing, sorrow reigned in four other homes. Bodies of the dead were taken to their homes for funerals,” the Record reported Oct. 31, 1931.

John Molitoris, 35, Jacob Tinus, 45, Henry Ceglarski, and Paul Novak, 40, all from Mocanaqua, were identified as those killed.

The Record reported Tinus and Novak were killed in the gas explosion while Molitoris and Ceglarski were overcome by poisonous black damp.

“Business was suspended and Mocanaqua streets were crowded for the four men as their caskets were carried from their respective homes and placed on hearse,” the Record reported of their funerals.

Molitoris, Novak and Tinus had their funeral mass at the Slovak Church of Ascension while Ceglarski’s funeral mass was held at St. Mary’s Polish Church.

“On leaving the churches, the funerals again merged for the walk to the cemeteries. Novak, Tinus and Molitoris were interred in adjacent graves in the Slovak cemetery while Ceglarski was buried in the adjoining Polish cemetery,” the Record reported.