NIGHTCAPS TRAGEDY

Evening Star, Issue 21077, 14 April 1932, Page 6

NIGHTCAPS TRAGEDY

TWO LIVES LOST IN GOAL MINE FURTHER PARTICULARS [Per United Press Association.] INVERCARGILL, April 13. A distressing tragedy occurred at the Black Diamond mine at Nightcaps about 9.30 this morning, two lives being lost as the result of an extensive fall of coal. The dead are;— ROBERT W. DUNCAN, mine manager, aged forty, married, with three children. J. NUTTER, miner, aged thirty-nine, married, with four children. Rescue parties were recruited from the adjoining mines, and tho work of digging in search of the victims was commenced immediately. Dr Wood, of Nightcaps, was summoned, and an ambulance room at the head of the shaft was prepared. After three hours’ desperate work by approximately sixty men Nutter’s body was recovered, life being extinct. At that time there was no trace of the mine manager, but shortly afterwards his voice was heard, and the searchers worked with renewed vigour. About 1 o’clock Duncan’s body was found. His voice was heard almost until he was reached, so that he must have died just before ho was found. For a few days past the mine had not been working, but a full start was made at 8 o’clock this morning. The men were taking the “ easy ” coal from around the pillars, and must have undermined them. It was pure luck that Arthur Tinker, a director, who lives at Nightcaps and works at the mine, was not caught in the fall, as ho regularly accompanied the mine manager on his visits to the shaft. This morning he happened to be assisting in another part of the mine, and so was not in the danger area.

The Black Diamond mine has always been considered a very safe one. The late Mr Duncan’s family has been unfortunate in its connection with coal mining, as his brother-in-law, the late T. Dixon, was killed in an accident in the Wairaki mine last June, and his father was the victim of a mine fatality at Nightcaps in 1907.