West Frankfort, Benton Rotarians honoring coal miners lost
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[West Frankfort and Benton Rotarians on Tuesday are meeting together to remember those lost in the Dec. 21, 1951 Orient No. 2 mining disaster.
Benton Rotary Club President William Dill obtained a copy of the report submitted by then U. S. Bureau of Mines chief mine inspector M. J. Ankeny and the accident prevention and health division.
The report states that a widespread gas and coal-dust explosion occurred in Orient No. 2 at approximately 7:40 p.m. that caused the death of 119 men.
The introduction of the report states that 257 men were in the mine when the disaster occurred. Of that number, 133 escaped to the surface of the mine uninjured and unaided, four were rescued and hospitalized and one, who survived, was rescued 58 hours after the explosion.
Excerpts from "The Orient No. 2 Coal Mine Explosion" written by Desiree Southern Ratay recall a somber Christmas Day in 1951.
"My grandfather, Charles Thomas Southern, was buried on Christmas Day 1951," she wrote. "A short time ago my father gave me a package containing a collection of 50-year-old newspaper articles pertaining to the accident that claimed my father's life.
"Thirty-five years after I first heard my grandmother tell the story of a horrendous mine explosion that changed her and her sons' world forever, I found myself face to face with the black and white details of the catastrophe."