BRIDGE SMASH.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 2 October 1934, Page 4

BRIDGE SMASH.

Tractor and Trucks in Torrent. MANAGER DROWNED. SENSATIONAL ACCIDENT AT DENNISTON (Special to the " Star.’’) DENNISTON, October 1. Hurled into the flooded Ngakawau River when a suspension bridge, collapsed, Mr Alexander Gilchrist Marshall, 65 years of age, manager of the Charming Creek Coal Mine, was drowned at 3.30 o’clock this afternoon. Mr Marshall was riding on a tractor which was hauling a rake of loaded trucks over the bridge when the accident happened. The tractor driver, Mr George Hunter, a single man, aged twenty-two years, jumped on to safe ground as the tractor slipped away into the deep river gully. He was found later two miles and a half distant. Apart from being slightly dazed, he suffered little injury. The Charming Creek Mine is about ten miles from Granity, and the mine is five miles away from the coal storage bins. It is customary to carry the coal from the mine to the bins in a train of waggons, drawn by a heavy tractor, negotiating a bush road. This afternoon the tractor left the mine with ten trucks, each loaded with more than a ton of coal. Mr Marshall was seated on the tractor. About half-way to the bins the tractor had to cross the bridge spanning the river, which was in full flood. When the tractor was almost across the bridge, the two heavy steel cables supporting it at one end parted with a loud report. The bridge sagged in the middle and then turned turtle. Mr Marshall was flung into the raging torrent, and one by one the waggons fell off. Mr Hunter scrambled on to the bank as the tractor, too, toppled into the flood. New Supporting Cables. The bridge was a solidly-built affair, which had seen many years’ service. Only recently it was overhauled and new supporting cables were put in. It is suggested that the accident was caused through the recent heavy rain having affected the rope bindings at the anchorages, thus allowing the cables to break away. Mr Marshall’s body has not yet been recovered and there seems to be little hope that it will be found for some time, as the river is too high to allow of a search. .Mr Marshall started his mining career in 1878, when, as a boy, he worked in a mine in Afghanistan. Later he came to New Zealand and worked on t,he West Coast, being at times employed by the late Mr R. B. Denniston. He then visited England and worked for some time in a Welsh mine. Returning to the Coast, he was again employed in the Denniston mines and in 1904 left for South Africa. Two years later he v.a.; appointed mine manager for the Westport Coal Company. He was later appointed Inspector of Mines for the West Coast. Vacating that position, he was appointed manager of the Iron Gate Mine, and then manager of the Denniston and Millerton mines. He retired frorn the Westport Coal Company's service five years ago, and up to the time of his death had managed the Charming Creek Mine. Mr Marshajl is survived by a widow, two married daughters and a son. His elder son, Robert, was drowned as a cadet on a troopship torpedoed in the Mediterranean in 1915.