AVALANCHE AT MINE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 64, 6 November 1931, Page 3

AVALANCHE AT MINE

(Press Assn.-

HUGE MASS OF DEBRIS SLIPS FROM FOUNDATIONS AT MIDNIGHT MINERS LIVES ENDANGERED

— By Telegraph — Copyright).

Rec. Nov. 5, 5.5 p.m. LONDON, Wednesday. The barking of a dog which was eventually killed by debris saved a family and possibly 700 miners from death in the Rhondda Valley. A huge tip of 1000 tons of debris at Overgorchy colliery, after 20 hours of rain and gales began slipping from the foundations at midnight. The dog alarmed the occupants of the colliery clerk's house, which was directly in the path of the avalanche. They had just time to get out in their night clothes by the back door as the house was engulf ed. An enormous mass of rubble and stone, colossuslike, swept down upon the colliery works, swamping the f eeder supplying water to the colliery engine and crushing the engine. houseThe colliery clerk hurriedly gathered officials and workers, who got hold of 100 empty eoal trucks, which, however, were speedily overwhelmed by the avalanche. The mass slipped a further quarter of a mile and threatened the mine shafts, endangering 700 men below, and also affecting the mine ventilation. The machinery was so damaged that the one pully working would only raise sufficient steam to work the lifts to bring the men and some of the horses to the surface before the cessation of the slip removed anxiety. The damage amounts to thousands of pounds. Work will be impossible for a f ortnight.