TRAGEDY ON STEAMER.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15185, 10 March 1923, Page 19 (Supplement)

TRAGEDY ON STEAMER.

TWO KILLED: 19 INJURED. , In a 20-minutes' fight in the darkness on board the Cunarder freighter Valacla two men were killed and 19 injured by an iron drum weighing more than a tun which broke loose in a storm. The Yalacia left London on December 27 and arrived in New York tin January 8 will) her forward breakwater bulwarks lorn and four ventilators bcnl anil twisted. On the evening of December 29, just after the first dog watch had been relieved, a big sea climbed aboard, ripped free a wind] with 150 fathoms of steel mooring cable, anil hurled it into the crowded foc-sle, which was immediately flooded lo a depth of four feet. The winch's first lunge cut the electric cables, and in the darkness the men had to leap blindly to grip the dock beams overhead, where they hung on for their lives.

Before the deck watch could come lo the rescue, a storekeeper and a coal trimmer, both veterans of the war, had been killed by the lashing cable. Ultimately bolts from the iron bulkhead had lo be cut nut to release the imprisoned water and to secure the drum. Almost every bone of (tie dead men's bodies was broken. Of the injured men 12 were severely hurt. There was no surgeon aboard, so the wounds were sewed up by Captain Dovle and a steward.