Tunnel undermines road

A motorist got a fright last night when his wheel disappeared into a collapsed mining tunnel under the Blackball-Taylorville Road.
Ferguson Brothers contractors were called to the site, just before the turnoff to Blackball, last night and were back this morning to repair the sink-under. Grey District Council assets manager Mel Sutherland said contractors were collapsing the road in where the hole appeared and would then fill it in to make it safe. One of the workers said he believed water had been running through the old tunnel for some time. The area was last worked in the 1930s, when the St Kilda coal mine was operational. Several years ago, an old shaft collapsed at the side of the road, right by the Brunner mine site, also on the Taylorville Road. The 131-year-old shaft, once the site of the Coal Pit Heath Mine, opened into a 2.5m-wide, 76m-deep chasm.