WOODEN STAGE COLLAPSES

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28868, 13 April 1959, Page 11

WOODEN STAGE COLLAPSES

100 Injured At Meeting

(Rec. 10.30 p.m.) BRISBANE. April 12

About 100 people were injured when a wooden stage collapsed during a tobacco growers’ meeting at the Memorial Hall, Texas, 190 miles south-west of Brisbane, yesterday. Police said that more than 20 had been seriously injured, including a woman who was buried under the debris. A state of emergency was declared in the town last night, and calls went out to doctors, ambulance men, and residents in nearby south-west Queensland towns for help. In the 15-bed Texas hospital, an emergency casualty station was established, and injured people were treated as they lay in the halls and on the verandas. The hall was built recently at a cost of £32,000. The stage collapsed during voting at the annual meeting of the South Queensland Tobacco Growers’ Association. Earlier, anticipating trouble at the meeting, five police and a

detective had been sent from Warwick and Inglewood, after recent trouble in the district over outbreaks of tobacco fires. About 600 tobacco growers attended the meeting. About 100 crowded on to the stage to cast their votes when the ballot was about to be taken for the election of officers.

Under their weight the stage floor splintered and the men were thrown on to a concrete-floored kitchen 15 feet below.