1916 tragedy recalled

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 23, 29 October 1985, Page 6

1916 tragedy recalled

A 69-year-old memorial to a tragedy that many Waimarino residents will not know about is to be refurbished by the Ministry of Works and Development. The monument stands alone on a rise a few kilometres along Lakes Road, and commemorates the deaths of six public works employees killed in an explosion on 16 May, 1916. Part of the lead lettering has fallen away and is to be replaced with a new granite tablet, and the memorial will be painted white. The men were working in a quarry 'two chains' north of Ohakune Station extracting gravel ballast for the construction of the RaetihiOhakune branch line. Eight men were placing charges in the centre of three tunnels when an explosion killed six, and blew the other two right out of the tunnel, leaving them alive but injured. It was uncertain whether the blast was caused by premature explosion of the charges or by spontaneous combustion. Two bodies were found that night and the next day the Huntly Coal Mine rescue team came down and found three more. The sixth,

Torrens, was never found. Athol Kirk, Wanganui historian, speculates that the bones found a few weeks ago near the Main Trunk Line may have been the remains of Torrens. The names of the dead

were Geoffrey Mellsop, 28, George Larking, 21, Arthur Davies, 35, Patrick McGarry, 33, Jackson Torrens, 50, and William McCord, 35. The monument should be restored by the end of this financial year.