A PERILOUS PREDICAMENT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 314, 26 April 1877, Page 4

A PERILOUS PREDICAMENT.

An extraordinary accident happened to the Tay bridge at 8.15 p.m. on February 2, during the prevalence of a terrific storm. The workmen should have been taken ashore at five o'clock, but the gale was so violent that the steamer employed in that service was unable to reach the bridge, and they had accordingly to be left there exposed to the fury of the elements. At the hour first named, and after a lull, a fearful squall struck the bridge, and was followed by a tremendous crash and " great bursts of fire," which lighted up the whole air for .a few seconds. At first it was believed that a steamer had been blown up, the noise and flame exactly resembling those caused by a boiler explosion : but soon the idea gave place to the correct one, viz., that a part of the bridge had been blown down, the thme being caused by the friction of the failing masses of iron. It was not until five- o'clock ntf.tt morning that a steamer succeeded in rescuing the unfortunate workmen, who had spent a night of the greatest misery, huddled against the piers of the bridge. One of them had his leg broken by a piece of the fabric falling upon htm. When daylight came it was found that t«vo 21.3 ft. girders, part of a 145 ft. girder, and the greatest part of two of the piers, had been carried clean away. The girders had not been placed in position, and it is supposed that the accident occurred through the supports of one of them giving way, and that it had carried away the other girders and the piers in its fall. The fallen ironwork can be recovered, and as the foundations of the piers are uninjured, it is believed tho damage

will not exceed £."000, and will not cause any great delay in the prosecution of the works.