Hueytown, AL Coal Mine Explosion, June 1972

20 HURT IN COAL MINE BLAST.

Hueytown, Ala. (UPI) -- An explosion rocked a coal mine tunnel in which more than 200 men were working late Tuesday night, injuring 20 of the miners. The other workers were evacuated without incident.
None of the injured men was believed seriously hurt although six of them were hospitalized following the blast at the U.S. Steel Corp.'s Concord mine near this Birmingham suburb.
Officials at three hospitals said most of the men were treated for shock and smoke or gas inhalation. The hospitalized men suffered from burns of the face and hands.
Mine officials refused to term the incident an explosion, but one witness, among the slightly injured, said, "There was just a sudden explosion."
The witness said there was no panic and all of those in the mine at the time made their way to the nearest exit.
A spokesman for U.S. Steel said the incident apparently occurred when "some sort of foreign matter passed through a crusher at the mine which caused some sort of reaction."
The No. 1 crusher at the mine, located about a mile northeast of here and about 15 miles from Birmingham in a wooded, isolated area, was the site of the blast.

Kingsport Times Tennessee 1972-06-14
__________________

Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!