MINE TRAGEDY

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21374, 19 March 1941, Page 4

MINE TRAGEDY

VERDICT AT INQUEST DEATH FROM ASPHYXIATION BODY FOUND IN SHAFT (Special to Times) HUNTLY, Wednesday A verdict that deceased died at the Rotowaro mine from asphyxiation, there being no evidence to show how he came to be in the place where he was found, was returned by the district coroner, Mr F. Harris, at the inquest held at Huntly yesterday into the death of Mr Alfred Powell, aged 56, employed as a shiftman at the Rotowaro mine, whose body was found in the mine on February 12, at about 11 p.m. Mr A. L. Tompkins of Hamilton, and Mr J. Smith, represented the Taupiri Coal Mines, Ltd., Mr R. H. Schoen, for the Mines Department, and Mr C. J. O’Regan, of Wellington, and T. Hall, Huntly, secretary of the Northern Miners’ Union, appeared for the union and relatives of the deceased.

Ralph Coan, mine underviewer, described finding the body of Mr Powell in an old undercast about 10 minutes’ walk on the mine side of Mr Powell’s working place, and about 20 minutes’ walk from the surface. The gap in which witness saw the body was about 2ft. wide and 10\n. deep, so that deceased would have had to crawl to get through the hole. The body was about 30 feet from the gap and the chamber was about 9 feet wide and 7 feet high. The floor would be about 6 feet below the level of the travelling road. Blackdamp Suspected When witness first found the body he was suspicious of blackdamp and he endeavoured to get ventilation in. tt was over an hour after the body was found that the air cleared enough for them to enter. Witness said that he would not expect a man of deceased’s mining knowledge to enter the chamber. Reginald Hugo Schoen, inspector of coal mines, said that the undercast was full of extinctive gas to the road level, a safety lamp being extinguished at just below this level. It was therefore not possible to enter it safely without ventilation. The air was particularly foul and life could not exist. Joseph Smith, mine manager, stated that at no time during his term as manager had the check inspector or workmen in the mine brought under his notice the fact that the hole was dangerous. It was 10 or 11 years since men had worked where deceased was found.