200 DETONATORS LOST

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26672, 5 March 1952, Page 6

200 DETONATORS LOST

PARCEL DROPPED FROM TRUCK WARNINGS BROADCAST IN AUCKLAND (New Zealana Press Association) AUCKLAND, March 4. TvVo hundred detonators wrapped in a brown paper parcel were lost off the open tray of a delivery truck in the Remuera-Newroarket-Epsom area this afternoon. The parcel is safe if handled with care, but would be extremely dangerous if anyone tampered with its contents.

Warnings were broadcast regularly to-night by the police, who feared that the parcel might have, been picked up by .children. Patrol cars were still searching for the detonators late tonight. If the parcel was run over by a car, there would be a shattering explosion. Packed in two sealed black boxes, each containing 100, the detonators were being delivered from the magazine of Johns Burns and Company, Ltd., to the offices of the One Tree Hill Borough Council. The boxes were wrapped in straw, and the whole parcel was about a foot long and nine inches in diameter. The word ‘‘Detonators’' was printed in block letters across the parcel. As the delivery truck made several calls in the Remuera and Epsom districts before arriving at the borough council offices, the police are unable to say exactly where the 'parcel was lost.

A spokesman for Johns Burns and Company, Ltd., said that it was the first time in his 45 years’ experience that a parcel of explosives had gone astray.