THE CLIFTON HALL COLLIERY EXPLOSION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7335, 19 August 1885, Page 4

THE CLIFTON HALL COLLIERY EXPLOSION.

A U:rr\\))", <:xji\ottion occurred at the Clifton }|.;tll iUAU.-ry, near Manchester, on Juno 18. 'i'liiiinsiK Worrall, a surviving undcrlooker, h;« given a, graphic account of the explosion, which was supplemented by others who were working immediately under his direction. Worral was superintending operations in the Dow mine, about 440 yds from the pit's mouth. When the explosion occurred the force of the blast knocked him and all the men and boys who were near him to the ground, props were destroyed, movable timber was hurled in all directions, and a number of waggons were lifted out of their places and overturned. Worrall was rendered unconscious by" the force of the shock, and when sensibility returned he saw the colliers running for their lives to the pit's eye. Instinctively realising that there was no means of escape in that direction, but rather danger of suffocation by afterdamp, Worrall instructed the men to make their way towards the Agricroft shaft. The men at once obeyed him, and begged Worrall to accompany them. This, however, he refused to do; declaring that someone ought to remain as guide to those who; having escaped the fury of the explosion, were yet unable to find their way to the upper ground. The brave fellow at once assumed authority over the panic-stricken workers in the Dow and Mve Quarters mine, and, undoubtedly, by preventing them from rushing to the Clifton Hall shaft, saved many of them from death by suffocation. He stood at his post until he had reason to believe that every man in the particular mines in which he was underlooker had been sent to the pit's bank. The fright of the boys and some of the men, he said, was painful to behold. One had become delirious with fear, and began to repeat, in schoolboy fashion, the letters of the alphabet. Men sighed and moaned, some shouted for help, and others muttered words of prayer. The pit bottom was strewn with the dead and wounded. The men working in the immediate vicinity of the pit's eye had been blown in all directions. Some had been killed by the shock and lay as they fell in different postures; others, stifled by the deadly gas, had fallen on their face and seemed as if asleep. The injured were in great pain, and uttered piteous cries. Very few of the injured men are able to give any account of the explosion. Visits to half-a-dozen of them, most of Whom, swathed in oilcloth, were writhing in agony, only elicited corroboration of Worrall's statement. . .

At a meeting of a Relief Committee in Manchester Mr Knowles, one of the proprietors of the colliery, stated that 180 lives were lost in the disaster, and that S5 widows, 279 children, and 36 other persons are left destitute. The necessary relief will absorb the_ Colliery Club fund of £10,800, and £15,000 more is required to be raised.