DANGER DEFIED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 206, 1 September 1941, Page 8

DANGER DEFIED

RESCUE EFFORTS

TWO MINERS TRAPPED

ALL HOPE NOW ABANDONED (0.C.) SYDNEY, August 27. The traditional disregard of danger shown by miners when their mates' lives are at stake was again demonstrated this week at the Renown colliery at Cullen Bullen, near Lithgow, when more than 100 men worked feverishly in shifts in an endeavour to reach two miners who had been entombed by the fall of hundreds of tons of coal and earth.

About 20 men were working in a tunnel and two of them. James Young, 43, married, and Noel Cameron, 30. married, were working nearest the face. Suddenly the cracking of the roof warned the miners that a fall was coming, and all of them, dropping their tools, raced for the entrance.

The fall occurred near an air shaft and sent a strong rush of air along the 15ft wide tunnel, knocking over the escaping men. They picked themselves up in the dust and debris and all escaped except Young and Cameron.

When the alarm was given miners at the Invincible colliery were holding a stop-work meeting in a public hall. They immediately rushed into the street and commandeered passing buses, cars and cycles to take them to the Renown so that they could join in tha rescue efforts. The fall occurred at 1.30 p.m. on Monday. Up till 9 a.m. on Tuesday rescue efforts were continued underground, four miners working abreast in the tunnel while others drove a shaft down parallel with the air shaft.

Hundreds of people had gathered at the pit top to watch the proceedings, and lit Dig fires to keep everyone warm through the night. Miners' wives prepared meals for the rescue parties, who worked until thev were exhausted and had to be replaced, and also kept them supplied with a constant supply of hot tea. Rescuers Called Out On Tuesday morning the mine management reluctantly called out the rescue workers because of the imminent danger of another collapse of the tunnel roof. A 20-ton bulldozer of the type used bv the A.I F in Libya was then obtained and started to dig downwards from the surface. Four hundred men were employed shovelling away the earth as fast as it was thrown out by the bulldozer's scoop.

At the time of writing, however all hope for the two entombed miners has been abandoned. Unless they were so hicky as to have been caught in a coal pocket, it is considered that they must have been instantly crushed to death by the fall which spread for several vards down the tunnel.

One of the rescue workers, named Duncan Kearns, said they had to timber every foot of the roof while removing the fall, but had worked to within about 12 yards of where they thought the two men had been entombed when they were called out. Two crib tins were the onlv trace of the men the rescuers found.

A wheeler, who had just left young and Cameron before the accident occurred, said thev were eating their lunch when he took an emptv skip down to them. Thev left their empty cribs on the ground and started pushing the skip towards the coal face. They probably could not hear the warning crack in the roof because of the noise made by the skip.

The Minister for Mines, Mr Baddeley, who went to the scene of the accident said it had been caused by pillar extraction. "This has caused too many mine accidents " he said. "We cannot allow this state of affairs to continue."