WHAT CAUSED EXPLOSION?

Hokitika Guardian, 5 April 1921, Page 4

WHAT CAUSED EXPLOSION?

— - NEW SOUTH WALES MINING. DISASTER. SYDNEY. March 15. What, caused the premature explosion el blasting powder in the (adia iron ore quarries, and the deaths of nine men. is a question being generally asked in mining circles here to-day.

These are the biggest -open face quarries ill the State, and probably in Australia. From them comes the ore winch supplies the great blast furnaces and steel mills at Lithgow. The place is about 12 miles from Orange, deep among wooded hills. A big hill, almost all ore, is being <mt away in terraces. ~ien work at each face, and there are about 250 blasts a day. The disaster occurred on the top face. A liolu about 20 ft. deep had been bored, and was culled with gelignite—that is small charges of gelignite were exploded at the bottom of the hole in order to make a chamber there which might he filled with blasting powder. An hour then elapsed, so that there might be u danger from smouldering fuse, and then the powder monkey, Taylor began to pour a large charge of blasting powder into the hole. He had completed this work and was just about to tamp the charge when there was a hiss and splutter of flame. Taylor ~,-jed : ‘T,ook out!” but almost immediately there was a heavy, soft, explosion. Taylor was blown into the air. but not hurt, and the whole of the top of tho face toppled out and down on to t’ men working beneath. About a dozen quarrymen were working at the bottom of the face, and they did not have a chance. They heard Taylor’s yell, looked up, saw the whole face coming down on them, and some tried to run. But the mass had overwhelmed them in a moment. Two men appear to have miraculously escaped, .el nine were buried alive. All the other men in the quarry—about 150—rallied round and worked like demons to clear the debris away and got the bodies. Tt was a herculean task. Some pf the fallen boiil'L

weighed tons and had to be undermined and quarried away. Tt was three hours before the last body was recovered, .-nl were horribly crushed and mutilated. Then horror was piled on horror. These bodies had to be carried two miles to the township and guarded all night against the plagues of huge rats which detract so much from life in this

pretty country. The general accepted theory is Chat there was still a hit of fuse smouldering in the hole when the powder monkey (loured in the blasting powder, and that this ignited the charge. If so, it seems a sort of accident that it is impossible to guard against—for half the operations in this quarry consist of blasting.