BURIED BY COAL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23075, 28 June 1938, Page 13

BURIED BY COAL

COLLIERY ACCIDENT ONE MINER KILLED BROTHER'S LEGS CRUSHED [from our OWN correspondent] SYDNEY, June 24 Two brothers were trapped by a fall of njore than 300 tons of coal at Abcrdare Central Colliery, on the coalfields north of Sydney, one being killed and the other seriously injured. Working frantically, at great risk, miners dug out one of the trapped men, Peter Harrower, aged 44, after eight hours' toil. He was rushed to hospital with both logs crushed. The body of James Harrower, aged 45, was recovered three hours later. During rescue operations a second fall of coal broke both legs of the colliery manager, Frederick Hemingway. Three other rescuers suffered minor injuries. ( Peter Harrower was on the point of suffocation when reached. A rescuer scraped coal dust from his mouth and t>ave tha man water through a tube. As soon as he could speak he asked for his brother* Then he said: " All I waAt now is a pint of beer." Memories of the War " I knew from the start that there was no hope for my brother," Peter Harrower told his rescuers. "The skip saved me. He was on the other side of it, and the coal would have hit him straigh.t away. He had not a chance. I was buried a couple of times while 1 was in France with the tunnellors through the war. Those times 1 began to think back to tho days when I was a boy, and did not know what was going to be the end of it. But to-day J did not have that feeling at all. Once the falls stopped and I was under the timber I knew I would be all right." To ensure that the rescue efforts would not precipitate further falls of coal, which might destroy the chances of rescuing Peter Harrower, a tunnel had to be driven into the fall, and carefully timbered. The timbering, because of the loose nature of the coal, was a particularly dangerous operation, and it was while it was proceeding that Hemingway received his injuries. In the last hour before Harrower was rescued, the fear always existed that further quantities of coal and coal dust would bo forced into the cavity in whieh he was lying and make it impossible for him to breathe. Feverish Activity at Face The operation was so delicate that, toward the end, the rescuers discarded their tools, and removed the coal, piece by piece, with their hands. Ventilation had been affected by the fall, and the area in which the man was lying became so hot that the rescue party had, in the end, to work in relays lasting for seven or eight minutes each. From the beginning the rescue work was hampered by the fact that there was room only for a limited number of men to work simultaneously at the face of the fall. At the back of the parties actually working .son the fall an organisation that operated with almost automatic perfection was established to prevent the coal they were throwing back causing any obstruction that would delay the progress of their work. The coal was loaded into skips at br&ik-neck speed, and the pit ponies drawing the skips were hurried along the mine workings as quickly as they could move. Wheelers in charge of the ponies, and all the other workers whose tasks away from the working face contributed anything to the rescue efforts, stayed at their jobs and announced themselves ready to remain on as long as the two men were still under the fall.

VANDALS IN CHURCH SCENE OF CONFUSION MUCH DAMAGE DONE ATTEMPT TO BURN BUILDING [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY, June 24 Wreckers worked havoc in St. John's Catholic Church, Croydon Park, and police found signs also of an attempt to burn the building. An attempt to open a collection box for the poor failed. The outrage follows four attempts to burn down schools, and boys are suspected. Noticing a side door open, a parishioner entered to find the interior in confusion. The altar was wrecked. The canopy had been wrenched off. The vandals had prised open a steel safe, containing Bacred vessels. Heavy statues of Biblical figures were moved from pedestals. Expensive brass lamp standards were used as levers to wreck other fittings. After opening the steel safe and removing the sacred vessels, the vandals, instead of stealing them, merely placed them in an adjoining room. All drawers in the sacristy were pulled open, and their contents jumbled and splashed with a corrosive cleaning liquid. An attempt was made to remove the altar stone, beneath which is a sacred relic. The protective covering of the stone was slashed with a razor, which was found near by. Burn marks on the altar and a number of partly burned tapers suggested the attempt to set fire to the church. Police have been told that three boys were seen to leave the church grounds and ride off on bicycles. Entry was effected by forcing a side window.