ROOF OF TUNNEL COLLAPSES

Southland Times, Issue 23306, 16 September 1937, Page 12

ROOF OF TUNNEL COLLAPSES

WORKMAN BURIED IN SHINGLE (United Press Association) WAIROA, September 15. A shocking fatality occurred at the metal dump near the railway bridge at Awamate late yesterday afternoon when Harold Clifford Cocks, better known as Eric Daken, aged 21 years, who resided with his mother and his step father, Mr and Mrs Daken, of Kopu road, Wairoa, was found dead. He was engaged in loading a truck with metal and became trapped when the roof of a tunnel in which he was working collapsed. He was buried in shingle and broken timbers.

He was employed by Smith Bros., contractors to the Public Works Department, who are operating a shingle dredging plant at Awamate. When the accident occurred Cocks was engaged in loading shingle into some trucks. A cutting has been constructed and roofed with timber and the metal is conveyed across the river by a wire rone and dropped on to the roof of the tunnel beneath which the trucks are run ana loaded by means of a chute in the roof. The whole of the overhead structure collapsed without warning and the victim had no time to jump clear, being trapped in the truck over which tons of shingle and timber fell. Mr W. Smith, a member of the firm, who was standing nearby, had a narrow escape, being buried in shingle up to his hips. It was some time before Cocks could be extricated and when his body was eventually freed he was found to be dead. It is thought that death was instantaneous.