SECOND EXPLOSION AT GREYMOUTH

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23232, 20 January 1941, Page 8

SECOND EXPLOSION AT GREYMOUTH

NO DAMAGE REPORTED (From Our Own Reporter.) GREYMOUTH, January 19. A few minutes before midnight yesterday there was a second explosion similar, though of less force, to the explosion on Thursday night in Johnson street. The whereabouts of the explosion could not be definitely determined until this afternoon, when the representative of “The Press,” Mio lives in the neighbourhood, found a hole in the earth beneath a wire fence at the extreme end of William street. The site is near the Greymouth-Hoki-tika railway line between the Victoria Park trotting track and the railway workshops offices with two oil companies’ depots close by along William street.

The explosive used is believed to have been a single plug of gelignite which had apparently been placed in a cavity at the foot of a broken fence post. The explosion, which was heard throughout the borough, made a hole in the turf six feet in circumference and about two feet deep. There was old quarry rock below the surface and it is understood that a piece of this was hurled on to a house across the railway line about 50 yards away. No damage was caused by the explosion and, otherwise than as a foolish prank, the incident like Thursday night’s happening is inexplicable.