Wast Hill Tunnel collapse

[pophops]

I was speaking today to someone who said he remembered two workers being killed in the 80's while working in the Wast Hill tunnel.

I've Googled it but without success. Has anyone got any memories of this?

 

Edited to say....... Oops, Sorry if you clicked on this because you thought it was hot news. Didn't mean to cause a panic.

Edited August 3, 2015 by pophops

[madcat]

Sounds like a very sad incident .

 

Somebody I know reckons they were last boat through before Preston Brook had a partial roof fall many years ago now. I'm always glad to be out of tunnels.

[David Mack]

I remember it.

 

If I recall correctly they were repairing the brickwork in the tunnel crown at a point where there was a lot of water coming through which had washed out the mortar leaving the brickwork loose and in danger of falling. Work was being done from scaffolding erected in the tunnel, which remained in water so that a boat could be used for access, delivery of materials and removal of rubble. What nobody knew was that this location was an uncharted construction shaft, only loosly backfilled. With some of the loose brickwork removed, without warning the rest collapsed bringing down a quantity of the loose shaft fill material. The scaffolding fell to one side and the men with it. They were pinned under the water by the debris aand drowned. It was reckoned that if the tunnel had been drained the men would have survived without major injury.

 

BW were prosecuted for H&S breaches and a substantial fine imposed.

The procedures for working in tunnels were subsequently tightened up to minimise the chances of another such incident.

[magpie patrick]

I recall it happening exactly as David Mack describes, except I didn't know the bit about the workers drowning rather than being crushed by the rubble. I was still at school which makes it no later than 1984, and probably rather earlier. The incident made national television with camera crews filming the scene and the rescue attempt.

[pete harrison]

23 November 1979 per Waterways World magazine January 1980 page 27.

[Trickster]

In February 1964 I was a pupil at nearby kings Norton grammar school. Two boys I knew Rob Seymore and Clive Chance attempted to canoe thru the tunnel, and were drowned. I often think with sadness of this event.

[Rob-M]

I was speaking today to someone who said he remembered two workers being killed in the 80's while working in the Wast Hill tunnel.

I've Googled it but without success. Has anyone got any memories of this?

 

Edited to say....... Oops, Sorry if you clicked on this because you thought it was hot news. Didn't mean to cause a panic.

Yes there was, I was a kid at Alvechurch at the time and whilst they were removing the lining of the tunnel they uncovered the bottom of a shaft that was full of rubble and were killed. At least that is the story I heard at the time.

Alvechurch hire boats were operating from Earlswood whilst the tunnel was closed, and for a time it was rumoured that the tunnel was going to be closed for good.

Edited October 6, 2015 by Rob-M

[RLWP]

In February 1964 I was a pupil at nearby kings Norton grammar school. Two boys I knew Rob Seymore and Clive Chance attempted to canoe thru the tunnel, and were drowned. I often think with sadness of this event.

 

That's an awful thing to happen, are there more details of how and why?

 

Richard

[Trickster]

It was the February half term . In those days we didn't get a week, just the Friday and Monday. Rob and Clive left their homes early on the Friday to make the canoe trip through the tunnel. Unfortunately they didn't tell anyone their plans. When they didn't come home that night the police were called and a search started, but they had no idea where they had gone. There was no news all Saturday, Sunday and Monday. On the Monday night a family returned home from a few days away and learned of their disappearance for the first time. Their son was also a pupil at our school and said that he had happened to see them on the Friday carrying a canoe down to the canal. A search was carried out and they were found. I drive over that bridge at the bottom of Parsons Hill, Kings Norton and always think about them and what they might have achieved had they lived.

[RLWP]

Thank you for that. What a sad story

 

Richard

[Mark Hookway]

It was indeed 23rd November 1979, a Friday as I recall and I still remember it as though it were yesterday.

I was 15 years old at the time and I attended what was then Primrose Hill Comprehensive School on Shannon Road, Kings Norton. When news got out what had happened on that fateful day with the tunnel collapse, the school was evacuated, because the tunnel almost runs underneath it and the school couldn't take any chances in case the tunnel collapse would affect the school in any way, but thankfully it didn't.

On that night, I remember going to a party at someone's house on the Primrose Hill estate and then walking back home in the early hours of Saturday morning near the entrance to Wast Hill where an overnight search was going on to try and find the two men buried in the tunnel collapse.

It was such a terrible tragedy with the deaths of those two men and I don't know if there was any truth in the rumour that a surviving workman had to swim his way out of the tunnel to the Hopwood end, some one and a half miles.

 

 

 

[MtB]

On 02/07/2017 at 21:25, Mark Hookway said:

It was indeed 23rd November 1979, a Friday as I recall and I still remember it as though it were yesterday.

I was 15 years old at the time and I attended what was then Primrose Hill Comprehensive School on Shannon Road, Kings Norton. When news got out what had happened on that fateful day with the tunnel collapse, the school was evacuated, because the tunnel almost runs underneath it and the school couldn't take any chances in case the tunnel collapse would affect the school in any way, but thankfully it didn't.

On that night, I remember going to a party at someone's house on the Primrose Hill estate and then walking back home in the early hours of Saturday morning near the entrance to Wast Hill where an overnight search was going on to try and find the two men buried in the tunnel collapse.

It was such a terrible tragedy with the deaths of those two men and I don't know if there was any truth in the rumour that a surviving workman had to swim his way out of the tunnel to the Hopwood end, some one and a half miles.

 

 

Welcome Mark. Thank you for posting this.

[Mark Hookway]

Thank you Mike