LATER PARTICULARS.

Feilding Star, Volume XI, Issue 77, 19 December 1889, Page 2

LATER PARTICULARS.

LITTLE HOPE OP RESCUING THE ENTOMBED MEN. The fatality was caused through No. 1 : channel giving way at a point between where the cross tunnels from sections 2 and. 3 of No. -3 channel. About 9 a.m. yesterday it was discovered that a block in No. 1 channel had occurred. The signal was at once given, and the nozzles diverted so as to send down as little dirt as possible. The water backed ,up with astonishing rapidity, and though instructions were at once sent to. turn it off, it had risen 19ft before ;this could be done.; As the channel was not: more than Bft high, the whole section must be full of, water and the men drowned. A tunnel is being driven to tile place where the men are entombed, but it will take ten hours to reach them. The victims of this terrible disaster are well known and respected in this district. ' Straight leaves a wife and nine -children ; Morgan a wife and five children; Evans is married but has no family ; the other two are single. Mansfield had a narrow escape from drowning in No. 1 channel not long ago. The excitement at Kumara is most intense, and the distress of Ihe relatives of the poor men are heartrending. Hundreds congregated on the spot, but the prospects, of rendering help was regarded as remote in the extreme. The rescuers are working with a will, and before daylight should -recover the bodies. Although Kumara hae seen many sad mining accidents since it was rushed 12 years ago, nothiug has occurred to equal this. Once three lives and once two were'' lost"; .but this exceeds them, not only in the number, but m the awful suddenness with which the men were overwhelmed. -