ACCIDENT AT THE VICTORIASTREET SEWERAGE WORKS.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 608, 21 December 1871, Page 2

ACCIDENT AT THE VICTORIASTREET SEWERAGE WORKS.

A.N accident of an alarming nature, but happily unattended with any serious results, took place this morning at 10 o'clock at the excavations for the new sewer in Victoria-street. A man named John Claro was engaged in the shaft when the earth on the south side gave way and fell on him, a large piece of macadam wedging him in on the opposite side. The laborers promptly rendered him assistance, and by using levers prised the block up, and rescued him from his perilous position. He was conveyed to a chemist's shop close by, but was found to be apparently uninjured, beyond a few bruises. But the accident shows the necessity of shoreing up the sides of the excavations as the work proceeds ; and it is to be hoped that the City Surveyor will see that this precaution is carried out in future. The escape the man had was most providential, as had the block of metal struck him on the head, instead of the stomach, it is feared ho would not have lived to tell the tale, and the contractor would certainly have been culpable of negligence in leaving the sides nnprotected, rendered doubly insecure by the mass of earth thrown upon them.