MINING TRAGEDY

Taranaki Daily News, 14 April 1932, Page 5

MINING TRAGEDY

TWO DEAD AT NIGHTCAPS

BURIED BY BIG COAL FALL

RESCUERS JUST TOO LATE

yOICE OF HEARD

■LIFELESS BODIES FOUND

By Telegraph.— Press Association. Invercargill, Last Night.

Two lives were lost this morning as g, result of an extensive fall of coal in the Black Diamond mine at Nightcaps about 9.80* this morning. The dead tjie Robert W.‘Duncan, mine manager, aged 40, and married with three children, and J. Nutter, a miner aged 39, married with four children.

(Rescue parties were recruited from adjoining mines and the work of digging in. search of the victims was commenced immediately. Dr. Wood was summoned and the ambulance room at the head of the shaft was prepared. After three hours’ desperate work by approximately 60 men Nutter’s body was recovered.

At that time there was no trace of the mine manager, but shortly afterwards his voice was heard, and the searchers worked with renewed vigour. About one o’clock Duncan’s body was found. His voice was heard almost until he was reached.

For a few days the mine had not been working, but a full start was made at eight o’clock this morning. The men were taking ''easy” coal, from around the pillars and must have undermined them.

It was pure luck that Arthur Tinker, a director who lives at Nightcaps and works at the mine, was not caught in the fall, as he regularly accompanied the mine manager on his visits to the shaft. This morning he happened to be assisting in another part of the mine and so was not in the danger area. The Black Diamond mine has always been considered a very safe one. Mr. Duncan’s family has been unfortunate in its connection with coal mining, since his brother-in-law, the late Mr. T. Dixon, was killed in an accident in the Wairaki mine last June, and his father was the victim of a mine fatality at Nightcaps in 1907.