TRAGEDY OF RUNIC.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15361, 9 October 1923, Page 2

TRAGEDY OF RUNIC.

ENGINEER" ,'LLED. BURIED IN BUNKERS. “We were inspecting the bunkers. Suddenly there was a rumbling noise, and I was buried up to my neck in coal. I could not see the second engineer, as he was buried beneath tons of coal. I called for help. Then there was another slide of coal, and I was also completely buried. I was just all in when eager hands pulled me free.” In this way Mr W. Quinn, the storekeeper on the steamer Runic, epitomised the tragic story of the death of the second engineer, Mr Baldock, when coming to Sydney from Liverpool. When the Runic berthed at Moller’s Point this morning the storekeeper, although badly shaken as a result of the tragedy, was on duty. His nerves are, he says, “shaky.”

“I am the luckiest man alive,.’’ said Mr Quinn. “For half an hour I was buried up to my neck; I don’t know how long the coal was over myhead; but when I was rescued X was next to suffocated.

“It was, naturally, very hot in the hunkers, as we were just near the equator at the time. In the .circumstances a man would be suffocated more quickly than otherwise. I believe that was why Mr Baldock was never heseued alive. “What caused the coal to slide I don’t know. The second engineer was closer to the coal than I was, and lie was buried by the first slide. “It’s my work to inspect the bunkers, and so 1 have been down there since the fatality; but I have always had an insecure feeling,’’ concluded the storekeeper.