SHOP WRECKED

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 33, 2 November 1929, Page 10

SHOP WRECKED

SERIOUS EXPLOSION AT AUCKLAND UNDERGROUND ELECTRIC CABLES FUSE DAMAGE ESTIMATED AT £2OOO Dominion Special Service. Aucldand, November 1. With a shattering explosion like a great gun, Howie’s gramophone shop In Karangahape Road, Newton, was wrecked from end to end at 2 o’clock this morning. Gramophones, panatropes, records, needles, and accessories were flung in all dirctionS, and so great was the. concussion that the foundations were moved, and partitions were shifted out of alignment. The damage is estimated at over £2OOO. A bitumen gas explosion, the result of a fused underground cable, was the cause. The wreck was by no means local. The place next door, the Economy Store, a fancy goods and hardware establishment, had its plate-glass window smashed to fragments and toys and toilet articles were scattered all over the pavement on the other side of Howie’s. A staircase leading to the rooms of Dr. Pettit was blown into a perpendicular position. Sixty-six feet away across the street two windows in the upstairs part of the building were smashed. Following the explosion a fire broke out, but this was trivial in comparison. The City Fire Brigade soon had this in hand, in spite of the fact that the flames had crept Into the Bristol Plano Company’s premises. The firemen managed to put the flames out after smashing a fanlight, and it was not necessary to force the front door. Shop Completely Wrecked. The terrific force of the explosion can be judged from the fact that the shop, 80ft. long, was wrecked from end to end. Windows at the far end were smashed, a skylight was lifted clean away, and down in the cellar there was ruin and destruction. Panels of the door had been blown yards away. It was in the footpath immediately in front of Howie’s that the trouble started. When the explosion came the shop front was blown in all directions. The platform of the window was thrown on to the 1 footpath, glass and parts of shattered gramophones were sent whizzing across the roadway, a heavy panatrope was tossed ten feet among the wreckage, a dynamo was moved feet from its original place, and a solid counter with heavy cash register was twisted completely round. Every gramophone in the shop was either wrecked or badly damaged and records were smashed and littered in all directions. In everyone of the five gramophone “parlours” along the shop there was ruin. AU the partitions were moved out of alignment The telephone on the wall hung by a single wire. Down in the cellar, or store room, everything was topsy-turvey. Even a water pipe was burst. Stairs which lead from the back of the shop down to the cellar, solid before the explosion, are now rickety. Plaster from the walls was showered all over the floor. Whole Locality Shaken. “It’s a wonder the whole building wasn’t blown down,” said an assessor. People who live nearby stated this morning that the whole locality was shaken by an. amazing detonation. Even at 2 o’clock in the morning there was z a crowd around the shop in a very short time, and the police had a busy time keeping the curious away. With a sense of humour that is irrepressible, Mr. S. Holden Howie, managing director of the firm, stood among the ruins this morning with a smile on his face. “Burgled once a year and now a blow-out,” he said with a laugh. “Well, they can easily blow us up, but they can’t blow us out of business.” Cause of Explosion. The cause of the wreck and ruin is a fused underground cable. This is what happens: Water percolates through the pavement and finds its way to the cable. If there is a fault in the bitumen packing round the cable troughs the water finds its way to the wires and this causes a short circuit. Then the cable, which carries 460 volts, fuses and heat melts the bitumen packing. This creates a bitumen gas, which eventually explodes. As long as the present cable system Is used explosions such as these are liable. “The Auckland Electric Power Board is doing all that it can,” explained R. H. Bartley, general manager, this morning.” Since the last explosion of its kind, which was in a pork butcher’s shop at the bottom of Queen Street early last May, we have put down three and a half miles of new cable. This is what is known as an armoured cable, paper insulated, and lead covered, and they are laid straight in the ground.”