THE MOUNT KEMBLA CALAMITY.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 502, 15 August 1902, Page 3

THE MOUNT KEMBLA CALAMITY.

COAL-PIT HEROISM—THRILL-

ING SCENES.

The following touching and graphic description in connection with the Mount Kembla calamity came to hand by last mail: —

When the earth roared and quivered like some great beast in pain, the women of Mt. Kembla township know what was meant. Since coal was first dipped out of the ground the miner’s wife can see, in the soft cascade of her bridal veil, the wraith of tho “ white-damp ” which may be doomed to steal between her and her husband, sundering irrevocably. The women knew; and hurried with hearts aquake and gasping breath to the pitmouth. It was early in tho afternoon of July 31 when the roar was heard, and most of the men-folk of the mining village which clings to the steep side of Kembla and listens to the drowsy hum of tho Pacific beating on beaches a thousand feet bolow, were in tho mine: some hewing coal, others going to their working places (for the time was at the 11 change of shifts ”) —close on three hundred souls in all. Down in the town of Wollongong a Court of Justice was making inquiry as to what wages these men deserved who went into tho bowels of the oarth for coal, and a witness was saying that Kembla pit “ was the safest in the world ” when, dulled by distance, tho sound of destruction was heard, and from the soa-jetty a watcher noticed a tonguo of blue flame leap from the earth to tell of the death below.

At the pit-mouth, after tho first groat roar, absolute stillness, no groan or shriek to toll of the carnage, the air bruised only by! the sobs of women, and the deep panting of men rushing up to the rescue. There is no Victoria Cross to be won in a coal-pit battle with Death, yet, when men aro being mown down by tho white-damp with more deadly surencss than by any artillery, eager volunteers aro ovor ready to rush to the rescue. Heroism is commonplace in this grimy-calling of coal-getting, and whilst the long, long list of men who havo given up their lives for their fellows’ sake is year by year lengthened, _ there never creeps into the miner’s mind a thought of timidity when the call comes for succour.

“ Aro you going in ? ” asked the collierymanager at Kembla of a miner, who had come up from Wollongong, and was seen near the pit-mouth getting a lamp ready. “ Aye,” said tho man. Not a touch of concern, not a thought of any heroics. “ Do you know the mine ? ” “Aye, I think so,” And the smudged hero slouched away on his iron-shod feet—to save others, or to sacrifice himself, as Fate docreed. “ There was a sad lack of proper organisation,” wrote ono critic of tho rescue work. Ho had found it hard to get figures or facts. With scores dying underground, and other scores on tho surface eagor to rush .in to help, there was in truth “ a lack of organisation.” No man had a mind to wait until ho was drawn up in line, and called to attention, and photographed before rushing to the rescue. So eager was the heroic spirit that the men went to work without any formality at all. Irregular, yes, but surely not 11 sad.” In all, about 60 men took part in tho rescue operations. Two of them lost their lives, M'Cabe and M'Murray. M’Cabo was a mining surveyor, and held, also, the rank of Major in the Wollongong Garrison Artillery. A man of truly heroic mould, he was one of tho foremost in rescue work at the Bulli pit disaster in 1887. Early on tho scene at the Kembla calamity his eagerness to save life lured him to his death. Dr. Nash, M.L.C., and Dr. Paton, Government Health Officer, wore sent by tho State Premier to Kembla when the news |of tho calamity reached Sydney. They at once put themselves under the command of Dr. Robertson, a medical doctor by training, but now a chief man in New South Wales coal-mining, and generally leader of tho rescue workers when a roar from the pit-mouth hollows of disaster. A dour Scotchman, with a call for prompt obedionco in every note of his stern, peremptory speech, Dr. Kobertson is a trusted general to whom tho coal-men turn when perils have to bo faced. He knows the coal-mines and their gases, as other men know flowers and their porfumes. With

1 as hearty a contempt for danger as for sloth, Robertson carries out heroic work with no grace at all —almost i and can do fine things bettor than he can talk of them. He came to Kembla Colliery almost straight from a sick bed, but the dregs of an influenza did not prevent him from strenuous, perilous work through a night and a day for some 20 hours. When Drs. Nash and Raton enlistod under his command, Dr. Robertson ordered the ono to accompany him, the other to go by the side of McCabe into the under-ground workings, and then, reflecting, countermanded theso instructions. Tho men of medicine would be of little uso in tho mine ; on tho surface their skill might revive some almost smothered spark of life. No uso risking their lives. But ho wont in himsolf, and with him the heroic M‘Cabo. “ If I had gone in,” said Dr Paton, “ I would almost certainly have shared McCabe’s fate." As events resolved themselves, the two doctors were able to do but little; the miners brought out were invariably dead, whisked opt of life by the

, umes of “ white-damp,” the most deadly poison known to man. When coal gas explodes or burns in tho open air, carbonic acid gas or carbon dioxido (C. 0.2) is formed, and though not poisonous, will not support life. In an atmosphere made up wholly of it, man quickly smothers, but should it be mixed with some fresh air, life may continue. A close, ill-ventilated room contains an excess of carbonic acid gas, and is hurtful, though not necessarily fatal. But when coal gas explodes where there is but little oxygen and much carbon, there are too few atoms of oxygon to enablo each atom of carbon to attach to itself two of them ; and so they mato together, carbon and oxygen, on equal terms. That forms carbon monoxido (C. 0.), “ white damp, ’ most relentless of murderers. A breath of it, and the blood, paralysed, forgets its functions; the heart beats out a wild alarm, flutters faintly, stops, and life gently passes away. The gas kills most mercifully. A little weariness, a little faintness, a desire to rest, no thought of struggling, no anxiety for rescue, but swift, silent Death }

—which more softly falls Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.

All that Thursday afternoon at the pitmouth, whore only the pitifully-scarred earth suggested the horror of what was below, tense faces of women and frightened ones of children were mocked by the bright gay sunshine and the mo3t fair and beautiful scene. Rescue parties began to bring corpses to tho surface boforo nightfall, and they wero put in rows in a rough shed, to bo scanned by wives and mothers, who would not surrender hope until the dead faces of their loved ones compelled them to believe in tho cruelty of Face. Ono mother, a babe in her arms, was at tho pit-mouth by five on Thursday afternoon. The sun went down, and from tho Pacific below there came a gale moaning

over the mountain, as chilling, almost, as Death itself. She waited on, stubborn not to leave tho spot until he was brought out, alive or dead. Hours passed, and the wind moaned with deeper tone as the corpses in the shed grew row by row. The woman waited on, rushing forward as each stretcher came up from tho underworld, scanning the bodies for his face. The wind went down, sinking its voice to a sigh, and the sun suddenly showed up : still the woman waited on. At high noon one was yet there, pushing forward to each stretcher, deaf to all entreaty, dumb with her weight of anxiety. Shadows lengthened on the mountain, and the chill of evening was again on tho land before they brought to her her husband, dead, and she turned home in despair. In the houso of the dead the sight was grim beyond what words can tell. Here was the slaughter of a battle-field but no red flags of wounds to flaunt defiance of pale Death. Most of the victims had, as it were, fallen asleep, and their grimy faces were still life-like. One mouth clenched a pipe ; on several there hovered a smile as of rest after much toil. A few bodies wero scarred by burns; in only three cases had Death shed blood. Major M'Cabe, killed by the carbon monoxide, had, in falling prone, cut his forehead ; the wound bled for hours after he was dead. The gas kills without congealing the blood. There were some 260 men in and about the mine when the hand of calamity fell on Mount Ivombla. Of these somo 87 perished, and two men lost their lives in the work of rescue. Tho death roll totals over 90, so far as is known —the greatest of any mining accident in Australia. There is in New South Wales a State fund for the support of the widows and orphans of miners ; this will be largely aided by private charity, and those who have lost their bread-winners will not be rendered destitute. Tho cause of the accident was clearly an explosion of gas —probably of a great accumulation of gas—since the wrecking force was so terrible. The mine was worked worked with naked lights, and was thought to be quite free from inflammable gasos. But Mount Kembla was originally a shale mine, and there was a great area of abandoned workings. Possibly an accumulation of gas therein, and its sudden flow to the now workings, was diroetly responsible for the disaster. Whether the responsibility can bo traced further back, to somo human neglect of precaution, is a point to be settled by an enquiry; and there seems to bo a general wish that that enquiry should be most full and searching. This hecatomb may thus save more lives in the future than it has cost in the present. Death is very impressive when he strikes suddenly into thick of men.