THREE MEN KILLED

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 302, 19 November 1935, Page 12

THREE MEN KILLED

POWER STATION TRAGEDY. TRAPPED IN PIPELINE. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Nov. 18. Three men were killed at Lake Coleridge hydro-electric power station today when water from the lake was accidentally admitted to a pipeline in which they were working. The men were: Eric Thomas Cockburn, William Henry Crowe, and Frank Coates. All were residents of Lake Coleridge. The bodies were terribly battered by the enormous force of water, and death must have been practically instantaneous. How the gates at the head of the pipeline came to be opened while the men were still working in the pipe could not be ascertained this evening.

It is stated that six men were engaged in cleaning and painting the inside of one of the big pipes that carry water from the lake to the turbines in the power-house. Three had left the pipeline for a smoke at about 4 p.m., leaving Cockburn, Crowe, and Coates working inside the pipe near its head. By some means the floodgate shutting off the water from the surge chamber was opened, and the men were swept down to the bottom of tho pipeline under a pressure of water exceeding 2001 b. to the square inch. The gates are controlled electrically from a control-house near the surge chamber. Manholes giving access to the pipeline were open in several places, and from these vents water shot at terrific pressure into the air and right over the roof of the power-house at the foot of the hill. The gates were closed again before any of the power plant was damaged, and the bodies were recovered from the pipeline.