THE ACCIDENT AT CHELSEA SUGAR WORKS.

Evening Post, Volume LXVII, Issue 55, 5 March 1904, Page 5

THE ACCIDENT AT CHELSEA SUGAR WORKS.

[by telegraph — mass association.] AUCKLAND, 4th March. Kyowitnesees of tho accident at the Cholsea Sugar Works state that the stack of sugar, which lay in what is probaWyi one of the largest &torohouses in tho colony, constated of M>mo hundreds of tons of raw sugar, all packed in 2cwb bags. The stack was about 30ft/ or 40fb high and the portion which slipped was perhaps 20ft wide. The sugar had been stacked according to custom by lumpers, who are regarded a*s expert at the work. Unpacking or " breaking down," as it is technically ter med, was being carried out 1 this morning by iv party of regular em- , ployePS of tho "Suk«u- Company, under 0.1 contractor, Mr. Thomas Webb, who hud charge of tho raw augur htore. Afc the j same time, stneking operations by I lumpers wore proceeding closo by. It appears that no danger was at any time suspected, and the terrible fall of forty or lifty tons of sugar came without warning. The cause of this unusual fall can only be a matter for conjecture. Tho question of the hazardous (or otherwise) naturo of the wotk of "breaking down" was rather exhaustively discussed when the sugar-workers were before the Arbitration. Court last year. As soon as tho accident occurred tho lumpers working near promptly began the work of releasing tho five entombed men. In doing so they appear to have further disturbed tho btack, and a further fall took plaoe, enveloping flye more men. Soon news of the troublo in tho raw sugar store reached' remotest parts of the works, and forty or fifty men were booh at work, under direction of the manager, Mr. Miller, removing bags. Ono by one the men were lifted out and laid aside for treatment. It is related that when nine of the victims had been taken out, tho men reckoned tlmt this was the complete list, and were about to cease operations, but the manager ordered the removal of a small heap of bags which still romaincd, and when this was done, out crawled a man looking nob much the worse for his experience. He had been closo to the stack, and evidently escaped, the full , weight of the blow. | Most of the injured men are protected under their special sickness and accident funds and a providcul fund, to which they are subscribers.