HOUSES DAMAGED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 234, 3 October 1942, Page 7

HOUSES DAMAGED

BLASTING MISHAP

WOMAN'S LUCKY ESCAPE

(P.A.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Friday.

Three houses were damaged, one severely, and a woman narrowly escaped serious injury, when pieces of stone were flung hundreds of yards as a result of blasting operations in Waiwakaiho River, New Plymouth, at 7.30 this morning. Mrs. C. Chiffings was standing at the back door of her house watching the water shooting up hundreds of feet into the air, when a piece of stone, weighing 21b, crashed into the ground 18 inches from her feet. It went several inches into the ground. The most spectacular damage was done to a house about 12 chains from the blast. A large splinter of rock landed on the roof in front of the house, smashed its way through the corrugated iron and through the ceiling of the hall, cutting through the electric light conduits, and bringing down a piece of 4 x 2 inch timber about a yard in length. The hole in the plaster ceiling was about 3ft wide. The electric meter was broken. One piece of rock cut through a carpet and linoleum, and then went through the floor, leaving a hole about a foot in diameter. Several pieces of rock were scattered about the floor. The ceiling of an adjoining bedroom was also shattered.

The accident occurred when borough workmen were blasting rock out of the Waiwakaiho River to divert the flow of the main stream.