THE KAWARAU MINING ACCIDENT.

Kumara Times, Issue 3045, 6 August 1886, Page 3

THE KAWARAU MINING ACCIDENT.

The Cromwell Argue supplies the following particulars with regard to the fatal mining accident which occurred on the 22nd inst.:—“Painful excitement was created in Cromwell on Thursday morning wnen the rumour got abroad that two human beings were entombed the previous evening in a mining claim at Kawarau Gorge, the victims being a man named Alexander Cameron— one of the oldest residents in the locality—and a boy named George Hansen, whose parents reside at the Gorge. Cameron bad been at work for some time in a tunnel running parallel with the Kawarau River. The ground had been previously worked, and Cameron sought to get out one or two blocks that bad been left. The country overhead had been sluiced, and was rough and broken in the extreme indeed the whole place was surrounded by dangers, and it required an experienced band and adventurous spirit to tackle the work Cameron was engaged in. The entrance to the tunnel is a narrow gut, barely wide enough for a wheelbarrow to enter, the walls being composed of sand and huge boulders to a height on either side of some 20 or 30ft. The face over the tunnel mouth was of similar height and formation. The fall of stuff occurred about 25ft, inside the tunnel. When the alarm was given a number of miners were quickly on the spot, but the work of relief was arduous and highly dangerous from the stuff overhead continually coming down. Towards midnight on Wednesday the head of Cameron was bared, but immediately a heavy fall again buried the remains, and the toilsome work had to be renewed. All night the men labonred manfully, and relief parties from Bannockburn cheerfully aided in the risky work. On Thursday morning the body of Cameron was again uncovered to the legs, and again were the rescuers defeated by a downpour of stuff. Not till Thursday afternoon was the body of Cameron extracted, and six boars afterwards tbe corpse of the boy Hansen was also got out. This lapse of time gives an indication of the difficulty of the work the rescuers had, when the fact is considered that the boy’s body was only some five or six feet beyond that of Cameron. Tbe latter seemed to have been making his way out ol the tunnel, and had in one hand a candle and in the other a crowbar. It is thought he had been trying

to save the boy, but finding the stuff coming down, had fled for the mouth of the tunnel, when he was caught by the falling debris. The work of recovering the bodies was carried on with the utmost energy and persistency in the face of difficulty and danger, and the miners who so heroically stuck to the self-imposed task are deserving of all praise. Among them the names of W. Rowe, J. W. Robertson, and P. Wilson are worthy of special mention.”