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Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3125, 22 February 1879, Page 2

The particulars forwarded. to-day regarding the colliery accident at the Clutha are of the most harrowing description. Of the 36 men who went into the mine yesterday morning, not one, it is believed, has escaped to tell the story of the disaster. The number of children left fatherless by the explosion is estimated at one hundred, and, as nearly all the operatives were married men, the number of widows is easily arrived at, at least, near enough to see that a terrible social infliction has occurred, independently "of the loss of nearly forty strong, able-bodied men. We have not time at this hour to comment at length on the dreadful affair, but the lesson to be learnt seems to be the absolute necessity for a Mining Department, with duly qualified inspectors for the several mining districts. It may, .and. very likely will transpire that the most ordinary precautions against accident usually observed in coal mining have been neglected in the

.Kaitangata mine, and the result is one of the most disastrous affairs known in the history of coal working. There hare been accidents on a more extensive scale, bat it is not often that every soul engaged in a mine is suddenly sent to his long account. Dreadful as the accident appears to have been, and sudden, it is much to be hoped that our rulers will derive a lesson that wil). be of use in preventing a recurrence of Huch a slaughter in the future.