MINE DISASTER

Hokitika Guardian, 11 October 1932, Page 5

MINE DISASTER

LIFT CRASHES EIGHTEEN MINERS KILLED. (United Press Association—By ElectricTelegraph—Copyright.) (Received this day at 9.30 a.m.) ♦ LONDON, 'October 10. Crashing to the bottom‘of a shaft seven hundred feet deep at Park Lane colliery, near Leigh, Lancashire, nineteen -miners descending in. the lilt were kilted. -

Th© occupants of the powerhouse above b"»->-d a dull crash from the depths, j,s the cage struck water. One occupant survived. Th©. colliery signalman said that the double-decker cage went past like a breeze, and dashed into a sump. “I heard the cry of the miner, Rifshaw, who was struggling in the water.. I threw him a rope and pulled him to the raft, and lowered a ladder by which he reached the landing. SURVIVOR’S REPORT. {Received this Hav nt 12.25. t> m • LONDON, October 10. The general manager attributes the Plank Lane disaster to overcrowding of tho cage. Nineteen were drowned in the sump hole. Kilshaw, who is aix feet high and weighs fifteen stone, says “Everything was right until twenty yards from the bottom then the cage suddenly stopped a moment and later the ©age was hurtled to the bottom. Being the last man in, I had my back to the gate, and using all my strength managed to lift the gate just enough to scramble out and was shot to the surface as my senses were leaving me.” Doctors and ambulance men worked for hours extricating the bodies. In two cases there was a flicker of life and oxygen was administered for hours. Forty children -are fatherless as a result of the tragedy.