Disasters in 1947, page 2

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Disasters in 1947, Page 2

MINING

January 15 Fifteen coal miners were killed and two others injured in a gas explosion at the Nottingham mine of the Glen Alden Coal Company at Plymouth, Pennsylvania.

March 25 An explosion inside a coal mine near Centralia, Illinois, killed 111 men. [contemporary accounts]

top: Families await news about Centralia coal miners.
bottom: United Mine Workers president John L. Lewis after he personally viewed the Centralia mine.

April 10 An explosion deep inside a coal mine near Exeter, Pennsylvania, killed 9 miners and injured 9 others. [contemporary account]

April 30 Eight of 11 men working in the Spring Hill coal mine near Terre Haute, Indiana, were killed by an explosion.

July 24 Twenty-seven coal miners were killed in an underground explosion at the Old Ben Coal Company's No. 8 mine at West Frankfort, Illinois. [contemporary account]

August 15 An explosion in a coal mine at Whitehaven, Cumberland, England, killed 104 men.

NATURAL

January 24 An earthquake killed two persons and caused considerable damage at Puerto la Union, El Salvador, and to several Nicaraguan villages.

January 30 Tornadoes caused more than 20 deaths and injured about 100 in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, and Missouri.

March 26 An undersea earthquake caused a tsunami which inundated Gisborne, New Zealand.

April 9-10 Tornadoes that tore through the Texas Panhandle and into northwestern Oklahoma killed 132 persons, injured more than 700, and leveled three entire towns -- Glazier and Higgins, Texas, and Woodward, Oklahoma. [contemporary account]

top: Higgins, Texas, after the April 9 tornado.
bottom: Woodward, Oklahoma, after the April 9 tornado.

April 10 An earthquake shook much of Southern California. No deaths or major injuries were reported, but some structures in the Mojave Desert were destroyed.

April 15 An earthquake killed 3 persons at Patras, Greece.

April 30 Tornadoes and high winds that swept through northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri left three towns in ruins and a death toll of at least 21 persons.

May 11-12 Four persons were killed and 1,500 homes were leveled by an earthquake that struck Southern Italy and Sicily.

May 31 Six persons were killed when a tornado destroyed most of Leedey, Oklahoma. [contemporary account]

June The Mississippi River overflowed its banks in Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska, as did some of its tributaries. At St. Louis, Missouri, a peak stage of 40.3 feet was recorded, the highest since 1844.

The Mississippi River breaks through a levee at Alexandria, Missouri.

June 1 A huge tornado killed at least 34 persons, injured hundreds more, and damaged hundreds of structures in and around Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

July 3 Seven persons were killed by a tornado that struck several farms and all but wiped out the town of Warsaw, North Dakota.

July 15 An earthquake killed an unknown number of persons and caused $580,000 damage at Pastro, Colombia.

September 17 A hurricane struck the east coast of Florida near Fort Lauderdalre and swept across the state south of Lake Okeechobee toward Fort Myers. Once in the Gulf of Mexico, it doubled back and struck northwest Florida before striking New Orleans, Louisiana.

September 23 Some 400 persons were killed and 5 villages were destroyed when an earthquake struck Khorassan Province, Iran.

October 12 A hurricane hit the east coast of Florida near Miami.

October 15 An earthquake caused widespread superficial damage to an area 40 miles southwest of Fairbanks, Alaska.

November 1 An earthquake and resultant landslides killed 233 persons in the San Ramon area of central Peru.

December 26-27 New York, New York, was virtually paralyzed by a winter storm that dumped 25.8 inches of snow over a 24-hour span.

top: A normally crowded Times Square is all but deserted in the aftermath of a 25.8-inch snowfall.
bottom: A New Yorker clears a path through that same 25.8 inches of snow.

RAIL

January 17 Seven persons were killed and 70 injured when a Southern Pacific passenger train struck a broken rail and derailed 12 miles northwest of Bakersfield, California. [contemporary account]

January 27 Four persons were killed and 36 injured when the Pennsylvania Railroad's "Union" passenger train, en route from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Chicago, Illinois, struck a bale of fencing wire and derailed at Walton, Indiana. [contemporary account]

February 4 Four persons were killed and 64 injured when Southern Pacific's "San Joaquin Daylight" streamliner smashed into an oil truck that was crossing the tracks ahead of the train at Kingsburg, California. The collision spewed burning fuel over the locomotive (killing the engineer and fireman) and ten passenger cars. [contemporary account]

February 18 Seventeen persons were confirmed killed and at least 85 others injured when Pennsylvania Railroad's "Red Arrow," a Detroit-to-New York passenger train, derailed about 10 miles west of Altoona, Pennsylvania. After the derailment, the train's two engines, mail car, baggage car, coach, and two sleepers plunged down an embankment. [contemporary account]

April 5 Two passengers were killed and 34 persons were injured when the Burlington Railroad's "Pam City Zephyr" derailed and crashed into the railroad station at Downers Grove, Illinois. The derailment was caused when the train hit a tractor that had fallen from a freight train that had just passed on an adjacent track. [contemporary account]

April 19 The Illinois Central Railroad's "City of Miami" passenger train, bound from Chicago, Illinois, to Miami, Florida, ran a switch and derailed at Champaign, Illinois, killing 2 crewmen and injuring 21 passengers.

April 27 Thirty-six persons were injured when the Southern Pacific's New Orleans-bound "Argonaut" passenger strain struck a broken rail at Ontario, California. [contemporary account]

May 1 Five persons were killed 45 others injured when the Pennsylvania Railroad's New York-St. Louis Flyer "American" was ripped open by sheet steel jutting from a moving freight train near Huntington, Pennsylvania. [contemporary account]

September 1 A Canadian National Railways campers special crashed head-on into a standing eastbound transcontinental passenger train near Dugald, Manitoba, Canada, killing 31 persons. [contemporary account]

Aerial view of the Dugald train wreck.

VEHICULAR

January 29 A Greyhound bus driver was killed and 12 passengers injured when the bus slammed into a stalled tractor-trailer on the highway east of Columbia City, Indiana.

February 17 Thirteen members of a railroad section crew were killed and 16 others were injured when a bus carrying them was struck by a one-car Chicago, South Shore and South Bend electric train at a road crossing five miles east of Michigan City, Indiana. [contemporary accounts]

September 11 Seventeen passengers and the driver of a Greyhound bus were injured when the bus collided with a truck and overturned near Atlantic, Iowa. [contemporary account]

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This page was last updated on February 17, 2018.