EXPLOSION IN MINE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17546, 11 August 1920, Page 6

EXPLOSION IN MINE.

THE RISING SUN FATALITY. [by telegraph.—own correspondent.] WAIHI. Tuesday. Further details of the mining accident at Owharoa yesterday, in which Mr. Thomas Liddle, employed in the Rising Sun goldmine, was fatally injured in an explosion, go to show that the deceased was working in a drive at the time, in company with a companion. It seems that a winze at No. 1 level, which gives ventilation to the level below, had collapsed, and that the mine manager, in order to pick it up and restore the ventilation, decided to drive both ways to it. When the accident occurred the deceased and his fellow-worker had advanced their drive to within about two feet of the drive coming from the opposite direction. The arrangement between the parties apparently was that the holes in the respective faces were to be fired simultaneously, to connect the two drives, but owing to some misunderstanding the holes in the second drive were fired first, with the result that Liddle, who evidently was standing close up to the face, received the full force of the explosion, and was instantaneously killed. The deceased, who was a married man with a family, and an old resident of the district, had only resumed work in the Rising Sun mine, in which he had been previously employed as shift boss, a few days ago. Some years ago he owned the Veritas claim, which adjoined the Rising Sun mine, and which he subsequently sold to the latter company.