A SINGULAR ACCIDENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 189, 29 January 1887, Page 4

A SINGULAR ACCIDENT.

One would have thought it impossible tfaaft there should be an unprecedented accident £ but it is said that tho catastrophe on Loch Fyne, by which seven persons lost their lived rocontly, had never occurred before* It has been the custom ot the bailies of Glasgow to attend tho annual "monstar blasts'* in the gte.it Crarae quarioß on %he loch, and this year the custom was observed. Sev9U tonti of powder were fired at once, dislodging, it is believed, some 80,000 tons of grauKe, and after the stone had fallen the visitors strolled into the quarries to see the. result. Same 300 ladies and gantlemen were standing about talking when one after another was observed to fall apparently dead, till nearly 100 bodies were sGretched on the stone. They were at once carried out by the quarrymen, but it was found that seven were dead, and that thirty more were more or iess injured, a few severely. The visitors had been asphyxiated by the sulphurous vapour caused ny the blast, the shortest among them feeling it first, and mo^t severely One witness, who fainted, but recovered, testified that the sensation wa3 " rather pleasant than painful " No blame attaches to any one, the vapour having been retained longer than usual by the horseshoe chape of the quarry, which stops the breizo on ihree aides.