Seven Men Rescued After 80 Hours In Kaimai Tunnel

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32234, 28 February 1970, Page 1

Seven Men Rescued After 80 Hours In Kaimai Tunnel

(New Zealand Press Association) KAIMAI PORTAL, Feb. 27. Blinking uncertainly under the glare of arc lights, the seven survivors of the Kaimai tunnel disaster were hauled to safety up a steel rescue shaft tonight after 80 hours in the tunnel.

Cheering rescue workers, who had worked round the clock to free the seven miners trapped after a cave-in near the tunnel entrance, gave the begrimed but clean-shaven men a rousing welcome.

To shouts of “Good on you, Lyn” from his workmates on the surface, ’Lyn Gerald Grason, aged 23. of Matamata, was the first survivor to emerge. One of the first people he saw was his smiling wife, who watched him walk across to a waiting ambulance. J-

Four minutes later, at 10.8 pjn.. 19-year-old Gordon Ralph McLeay, marriea, of Matamata. was brought out as his familv looked on.

The third up the 32- ( inch-wide rescue shaft j was Martin Brendon ■ Hestor. . a 50-year-old{ married miner who was trapped in the tunnel on his first day at work on the Kaimai project. Then came an Irishman, Patrick James Kelly, of County Leitrim, who waved cheerfully to the rescue workers. The two injured miners were hauled out of the shaft on wooden cradles and swung up and over the rim of the crater in the shovel of a huge earth-mover. The first was William Gilheaney, aged 27. also from County Leitrim. He has a broken thigh. Six of the rescue workers carried him 100 yards along

a bulldozed path to a Royal I New Zealand Air Force Iroquois helicopter, which flew |him to Waikato hospital. I There was some delay : before the sixth miner was ; brought to the surface and well-wishers peered over the crater rim. straining to catch a glimpse of the man, the tunnel overseer. Hubert Alexander Neely, aged 59. The delay was caused by difficulty in strapping him to a stretcher at the base of the shaft. Mr Neely was rescued by the other trapped men. who crawled and tore at piles of rubble to free him after the tunnel collapsed on Tuesday afternoon. They dragged him to safetyhut his leg was broken in three places. Mr Neely was brought to the surface at 10.52 p.m. and taken to the helicopter.

The last man to leave the tunnel was to have been the shift boss, Murray Hemopo, aged 27, who had been directing the rescue from his side of the fall. But before he was hauled free the arc lights dimmed at 10.58 p.m. The rescuers above the escape exit stopped al) activity and the waiting crowd fell silent, not knowing what to expect. The Mines Department's chief inspector of mines (Mr L. S. Jones), disappeared down the rescue shaft. At this stage Only Mr Hemopo and the body of the dead man, Alfred Thomas Leighton, aged 25, were still below. It is not known whether Mr Leighton died before or after he was dragged from the rubble in the tunnel by his mates. But at 11.24 p.m. Mr Hemopo clambered out of the shaft and was greeted with cheers. Smiling broadly, he walked unaided to the waiting ambulance. Officials sai< they thought he had been showing Mr Jones around inside the tunnel.

The rescue shaft was punched ’ through shortly before 8 pun. Earlier, rescue workers had hit a major obstacle with 4ft to go, and were delayed by falling rubble and the tilting of the rescue pipe. It was driven through after a 4ft extension had been welded to it The Minister of Works (Mt Allen), who stayed at the site during the rescue, to night said the successful attempts to reach the seven men in the tunnel repre sented “the greatest team effort ever seen in New Zealand.” Mr Allen said the trapped men had stated quite definitely that they did not wist to be bothered by photographers and reporters when they reached the surface. He said this feeling was supported by the Ministry of Works management and was the wish of every worker on the site. Late tonight, the rescue coordinator (Mr R. Hermans) and Mr Allen, who had at first refused permission for photographers to move within 150 ft of the spot where the survivors emerged from the tunnel, partly lifted the re striction. After long, and sometimes heated, negotiations between photographers, the Minister, and Mr Hermans, who is District Commissioner of Works, permission was given for two newspaper photographers and one news television crew to move to within 20ft of the site. About 35 photographer: from New Zealand and Australia at the scene were

forced to take a limited selection from a "pool” into which all photographs went. Two Australian television crews from Channel 9 and Channel 7 in Sydney crossed the Tasman at a cost of about S3OOO for almost no reward. Mr G. Cunningham, one of the cameramen, criticised the i public relations at the site. . and said: “There could have been better liaison between press and officials. This sort of thing couldn't happen in Australia.” Mr Cunningham was able to film only three minutes of the disaster scene after two days of working around the clock. He will return to Australia tomorrow with no film of the survivors Voluntary workers supplied more than 120 hot meals daily for staff in the rescue project. Since 6 p.m. on Tuesday women from throughout Waikato have worked round the clock, cooking for the men, and they have used more than 100 loaves of bread, 22 sacks of potatoes and 200 pounds of meat They have also provided many gallons of soup, coffee and tea. AU the food supplies were given by Waikato firms and individuals. Search For Bodies For the 80 rescuers there will be little rest tonight. They have begun the search for the three miners missing presumed dead—Peter James Clarkson, aged 21, of Tirau, Donald Alexander McGregor, aged 31, of Robertson, New South Wales, and James Smart, aged 28, of Fife, Scotland. Officials said late tonight that the area in which they could be located was a small section of the tunnel—or what was left of it Mr Allen said earlier today that there was a very slight possibility that the three missing men had sheltered under a ribbed section of the tunnel. With this in mind, a pneumatic drill was hauled into position to cut its way through to the ribbed section, but it was not started and was later dragged away. The rescuers plan to start the renewed search at the face of the tunnel, near where two huge drills attempted to punch rescue shafts from the surface to the trapped miners. They will then work their way through the rubble and rock to what was once the entrance of the tunnel.

The photographs show: TOP: The second survivor being assisted from the tunnel The tunnel entrance can be seen to the left of the white helmet in foreground. MIDDLE: The first four survivors being lifted by a crane from the entrance of the tunnel with workmates in the background looking on. BOTTOM: The man of the hour, Mr Murray Hemopo.