FURTHER DETAILS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 5, 4 February 1885, Page 2

FURTHER DETAILS.

On Sunday night, at a late hour, news reached Sydney of a terrible railway accident to the Melbourne m:dl train, on the Southern line, which was aft ei wards confirmed, but fortunately of not so serious a character as at first reported, when it was stated that seventy out of a hundred passengers wore killed and wounded. The papers on Monday morning wore only able to publish meagre accounts owing to the locality of the accident, it being some distance fi-o.m Cootamundra and caused through » fresh, and night dark with torrente of rain falling. On Saturday it commenced to rain heavily, aud the low lying lands were flooded, m 86 hourg the rainfall had reached to the enormous quantity of eight metres at a point called Salt Creek. Thoiiood waters came down m a great volume, and soon left a chasm about fifty yards wide and nine feet deep, and into this about half-past xeven on Sunday evening the whole tr.uu plunged. The mail train from Melbourne contained but few passengers but a number of bookmakers, at the invitation of Joe Thompson, chartered a special train m order to be present at Rand wick on Monday. This special catue up with the ordinary train at Albury, and the passengers was* therefore transferred on their way from Albury, a *?ood many changes mv ma.le, and it is estimated that the train contained about fifty person*. The night was pitch dark anil a stiff breeee swept from the south wan^ and pelting rain fell at the time of the accident ; many were sleeping, other* conversing and playing cards. The train was pa»siug at the rate of thirteen miles an hour when a kind of motion like a Volcanic shock waa felt, a crash, and the train lay m a ruined mass m the bed of the creek with the water pouring over it m a fierce torrent; then arose the skrieks and dies of men and women for help. When those inside the last sleeping cars thought they were about to l» smothered, the roof .of the carriage * wa>i crashed otf by telescoping with the hindermost car and this allowed the imprisoned passengers or some of them to get out and to swim against the current, for the shore. How so many escaped instant death is a marvel, while others were killed and some carried down m the flood waters. As soon as possible assistance was sent for to Cootamundra, about four miles distant, and m the meanwhile all possible assistance was rendered by those who had escaped to those injured. Fires were lit with debris of the train, Everything was done m a marvellously short space of time. As soon as possible medical assistance was.rehdered and everything done for the sufferers. Of the bookmakers Joe Thompson, Jaques burner, Bergeni Barnard, Cohen, Levy, and others were more or less injured. The»eare six bodies recovered, and it is feared that the number may be increased. There were two washaways on the line, one of which was known, and a man was sent forward to stop this train, but it reached this washawaj or gap, which was not known, and plunged into it before any warning could be received. The wires were down, and there were no means of communication beyond sending a man along the line to warn the approaching train.