Houses Collapse, Farnworth, Bolton.
12th September 1957.
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Daily News (London) - Friday 13 September 1957 (British Newspaper Archive)
Between 7 and 8 o'clock on 12th September 1957, a hole opened up in Flyde Street/Moses Gate, Farnworth, in Bolton, Lancashire. It gradually grew during the day to around 120 feet long and up to 40 feet deep. Heavy rain flowing through an old storm drain had caused a sewer to collapse. Houses in the street began to fall into the gap created and the local railway tracks were damaged.
An emergency conference was suet up by the local authorities concerned, and urgent appeals for help were sent to the Police, Fire, Welfare, Civil Defence and the W.V.S.
"Reminiscent of war-time bomb damage" was how a local newspaper described the Farnworth disaster which caused the partial or complete collapse of twenty-four houses on Fylde Street with a further one hundred and twenty-one others in the area badly damaged. More than four hundred people were evacuated
No water was available, due to the risk of sewerage contamination, and the supply of gas had to be cut off, but water was brought from elsewhere and arrangements quickly made for the Civil Defence Corps Welfare section to provide an emergency feeding service which operated day and night.
The CDC Wardens' section assisted in the control of traffic and of members of the public who visited the scene in large numbers. Rest Centres were opened, Civil Defence vehicles made available and the new Civil Defence rescue lighting equipment (see Pathe film link below) was used so that operations could be continued during the night. CDC rescue teams shored up some of the houses allowing Council workers to deal with damaged road.
Civil Defence Corps rescuing belongings from damaged buildings 
On the 5th and 6th of October, salvage operations aimed at returning belongings to those who could not re-occupy their homes began. Members of the Rescue Section of the Lancashire County Division of the Civil Defence Corps extricated goods and furniture from shops and buildings which had been partially destroyed and were in a dangerous condition.
One team working in the rubble of Mrs. Robert Quegan's grocery shop were flinging aside the bricks and passing down tinned milk, melons, and bottled mayonnaise which had been buried. Higher up Hall Street, the Prestwich team pulled a heavy compressor from an engineering works. It had taken a crane to install it, but they dragged it out by hand under a dangerously buckled roof. From the house at the corner of Hall Street and Hall Lane the workers rescued treasured red geraniums from the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Knowles.
The saddest discovery was a litter of six dead puppies in an outhouse behind the 
wrecks of Fylde Street. Their mother, a shaggy black mongrel, had not been able to reach them since the day of the subsidence and had been whining close by for several weeks.
The work was sufficiently difficult, and dangerous, to need expert workers. Many of the Civil Defence teams are in the building trade and their professional knowledge helped, especially with the Knowles's house, which was bulging ominously over Hall Street. A hawser was slung around its waist as an extra support to the prop, but even this must have seemed rather frail to the men who climbed into the upper storey.
The director of the operation, Major R. W. Bretherton, assistant Civil Defence Offcer for Lancashire said, "this was a grand opportunity for the men to help distressed people and give themselves some practical experience at the same time"
John Seddon, the Mayor of Farnworth, set up a relief fund which raised over £20,000. Farnworth-born comedian Hilda Baker did a special show and a collection was made at the Bolton Wanderers vs Arsenal football game.
Film footage (no sound) by British Pathe can be found here. You can see the floodlights set up by the CDC Rescue section to enable work to continue into the night.Sources:
Civil Defence magazine Vol. 9 No.11 & 12 November & December 1957
Daily News (London) - Friday 13 September 1957 (British Newspaper Archive)
