A SUDDEN EXPLOSION

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 10848, 14 March 1921, Page 5

A SUDDEN EXPLOSION

DETAILS OF CADIA MINE DISASTER. RESCUERS’ GREAT EFFORTS. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright SYDNEY, March 12. Further details .of the mining disaster at Oadia, in which nine men were buriedl alive, relate to the suddenness of the explosion, and the work mi rescue. William Taylor, the powder monkey, who had experienced a number of previous disasters, once being the sole survivor when there were seven deaths, said he had had thirty years’ experience.- and was most careful with explosives. He had fired on an average 250 holes daily. He had damped the bore, • and in testing it found it quite cold. When he placed the blasting powder in the bore he heard a hiss and splutter, and cried out, i ’Look out! Simultaneously he wa® knocked backwards, and was singed, about the face and hands. He endeavoured to warn the men underneath, feut the thing happened so suddenly it was useless. The quarry is situated on a high, hill, divided into faces resembling terraces, each thirty feet high, and ranging one above the other. The top was blown away, completely overwhelming men immediately below. . Sergeant Clark gave a graphic account of the work of the .rescuers. He said that some of the bodies wore buried six feet. Men with ropes pulled for their lives at the huge rocks and immovable' boulders. Some went on their hands and knees, scraping with their fingers and undermined them. They then had to orawl underneath and remove tons of debris with shovms. A sad feature is that most of the deceased were married. Johnson leaves a wife and seven children, and Bright a wife and four children. Mr Dooley sent a telegram conveying Cabinet's sympathy. The Mayor of Orange is visiting the scene to-day.