Newspaper headlines from October 1950 captured the horror at Burrinjuck Dam, where nine workers were swept to their deaths in the swollen Murrumbidgee River. Image: Trove.

Seventy-five years ago, on 19 October 1950, Burrinjuck Dam became the scene of one of the state’s worst industrial accidents.

Nine men – including three from Monteagle, near Young – were killed when a timber platform above the southern spillway collapsed, hurling them into the raging Murrumbidgee River below.

The men had been performing a familiar but dangerous task: removing the 12-foot wooden “needles” that controlled the flow of water through the spillway.

After a night of heavy rain, the river was running high and the pressure against the dam walls was fierce.

Around 11 am, as one of the needles was being lifted

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