GAS FATALITIES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 125, 28 May 1915, Page 8

GAS FATALITIES

INQUEST CONCLUDED CORONER'S VERDICT A MECHANICAL DEFECT. The inquest on the five victims of the recent gas accident at Thorndon was ' resumed before Mr. Riddell, S.M., Coroner, to-day. Mr. Macassey appeared for the Crown, Mr. Neave for the Gas Company, and Mr. Peacock for the relatives of one of the victims named James R. Smith. The company at the last sitting of, the Court admitted that the over-pressure which was the prime cause of the suffocation of the victims was due to a slight mechanical defect in a valve at the Onepu-road governor. The evidence of Samuel T. Reed, engineman for the Gas Company, showed that he had been employed by the Gas Company for about fourteen months. He started at the Courtenay-place works. ' He was accompanied in his duties when ! he first took them up by the engineman ' whom he had succeeded. He was with this engineman for three days, and was , supervised by him and other experts for practically six days. To Mr. Peacock, witness said he received his orders from Wellington as to what pressure to put up. On the night of the accident ho was told to put the pressure up ; but up to 40in was not specified. He simply used his own discretion as to what pressure to put up. The Coroner thanked the Gas Company for the exhaustive enquiry made into the cause of the disaster. The evidence was quite clear that its primary cause was a defective governor in the Onepu-road. The secondary cause was the enormous gas pressure supplied from the Miramar works. There would have been no bad results from this abnormal pressure had the governor been in order, but owing to the effect of the defective governor referred to, the gas was distributed through the service mains, and caused the death of the five men. If tho meters had been turned off the fatalities would not have occurred. Of course, it was not incumbent upon the 5 people who had the meters to turn' the gas off. The fact remained that it was advisable that governors should be tested before being installed. That, however, was not for the Coroner's Court to decide. There seemed to have been no rule for the engineman at Miramar as to what gas he was expected to supply to the city holders. The quantity of pressure was left to the engineman's discretion. It seemed to the Coroner that this man should have received some definite instructions as to the precise quantity of gas required. The verdict would fee — "The deceased — Walter Noble Holmes, James Robert Smith, Ynng Chung, Yung King, and Yung Wong —died at Wellington on 30th April, 1915, from coal gas poisoning, due to an accidental escape of gas from the service mains, caused by an abnormal gas pressure being exerted from the Miramar manufacturing station after 10 p.m. on 29th April, which the governor at Onepu-road failed to regulate."