CRUSHED TO DEATH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19698, 26 July 1927, Page 10

CRUSHED TO DEATH.

EARTH FALLS ON MINER.

VAIN RESCUE EFFORTS.

[FROM our own correspondent.] SYDNEY, July 14.

When William Grace, a trucker, employed in the brown coal mines at Yallourn, Victoria, was buried under a heavy fall of earth, 200 of his mates dug feverishly for four hours to unearth him—shovelling hundreds of tons of earth in frantic haste. Grace was smothering in a 16ft. tunnel in the open cut of the brown coalfields, but when his mates reached him he was dead—crushed by heavy timbers and hundreds of tons of earth. The earth broke away from an old open cut. The landslide began near the mouth of the tunnel in which Grace was working and fellow workmen near the mouth of the tunnel heard the earth " creep." They gave a hurried alarm. In an instant the earth trickle became an avalanche of hundreds of tons. Those working near the mouth of the tunnel jumped clear just in time, but Grace was trapped. Immediately the 200 men employed at the brown coal mine rushed to the avalanche and shovelled against time to rescue their mate. Hopeless as they realised the task must be, they never slackened until Grace's body had been recovered.