The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1912.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3661, 24 October 1912, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1912.

The deepest sympathy of the people of this Dominion will go out to the relatives and friends of the miners who lost their lives in consequence of the Mount Lyell disaster. As is well known. New Zealand has had its full share of mining mishaps, but fortunately lias experienced, if we remember aright, only one accident of this character of similar magnitude to that which has lately befallen the sister colony of Tasmania. Wo refer of course to the dreadful mining disaster at the Brunner coal mine, near Greymouth, in IS9G, when sixty-five miners lost their lives through an explosion. Upon the red roll of similar accidents in the other colonies, there are some, iv may be recollected, which proved even more calamitous than the Mount Lyell disaster. For instance, the inrush of water from old workings in the New Australasian mine at C res wide (Victoria) on the morning of Tuesday, 12th December, 1882, imprisoned 27 men in the drives, and 22 of them perished before the mine was unwatered and the rescue party was able to reach them. The catastrophe was evidently due to a defect in the plans of the old workings. A reef drive had keen put in about 300 feet, and, as according to the plan the old workings should have been about 250 feet away and 40 feet above the new cut, no danger was

A Sorrowful List.

apprehended ■ To make assurance doubly sure, however, bores were put up, and apparently both were m sound ground. On the fateful morn • ing an enormous volume of wat.** broke into tlie new workings without the slightest warning, and hi a few seconds it was rushing along the-drive to a depth/if five feety., pushing the hastily abandoned trucks before it. Two days later the water ha ! I een got down sufficiently to akow a 1 oscue party to descend. Five men were brought to the surface alive; twentytwo had been either suffocated hr the had air or drowned by the slow'y rising flood. Then, again, there was the Bulli catastrophe in March, 3887, which up to that time was the most serious in Australian mining hirfoiy. It cost the lives of 83 men. bn the afternoon in question the rnen working outside were bewildered by a sud- i den blast of hot air, which burst j from the mouth of the tunnel, bring- j ing with it the body of a boy, Heibeit Cope, which was carried out to a great distance. Many of the bodies of the victims, when they were discovered, were dreadfully mangled and almost unrecognisable. The terrific force of the outbreak was indicated by the fact that some bodies were discovered over half a mile from the spot where the explosion was supposed to have occurred. Even heavier in its toll of human life was the Mount Kembla {near Wollongong) disaster on 31st July, 1902. This claimed 90 victims. How the explosion was brought about is still something of a mystery. The mine was well ventilated, and on frequent inspections was found free from noxious gas. It is supposed that a fall of earth in an abandoned part or the workings caused an escape of foul air, which rushed along one of the drives till it-came in contact with a naked light. The dreadful affair sent the ( whole of the southern mining district of New South Wales into mourning. ! Other Australian mining tragedies ! pale into insignificance beside these. In December. 1866, there was an es- ! cape of foul air in the Stockton (Newj castle) colliery, resulting in the death !by suffocation of eight men. In 1886, there was a sensational explosion at the Lithgow Valley colliery. Five men were killed and others injured. The mine was partially wrecked, and fragments of plant were hurled about like matchwood. This list of dreadful casualties—to say nothing of the scores of accidents of minor degree—goes only too plainly to show the hazardous nature of the employment of j those who follow the important work of mining.