MYSTERY EXPLOSION

Evening Star, Issue 24007, 4 October 1941, Page 10

MYSTERY EXPLOSION

SECOND IN SHORT PERIOD “MOTOR BACKFIRED," SAY POLICE Deep, dark secrecy shrouds the second mysterious explosion that Dunedinites Lave heard in a short period. A ‘ Star ’ reporter, trying to trace the source of a detonation that last night shook houses at the foot of St. David street and woke such north end residents as happened to be in bed, found plenty of evidence of the explosion’s occurrence, but failed to uncover any reasonable explanation of it. About 10 p.m. was the time given by most who heard it. A fire engine siren was heard shortly after, and many people connected the two to mean that a disaster had taken place. That the fire call was a malicious false alarm (from the corner of Smith and- Tennyson streets”) may show that it was connected with the. major happening as the second half of a irresponsible prank. It is more likely that it had nothing whatever to do with it. The official attitude was not helpful. “ We only know what we have seen in the paper,” was the report from the senior-sergeant’s office. The detective office was not concerned. The north end police station had more to say. ‘ ‘ The papers take too much notice of these things. They haven’t enough to do. Someone hears a motor back-fire, and that’s an explosion. Probably a student was playing pranks.” “ Did the police make any inquires? he was asked. “ Nothing to make inquiries about, he said. The policeman on the beat didn’t hear it.” HOUSES SHAKEN. The matron of the Fever- Hospital had a different story. “ Yes, we heard it all right. From here it wasn t as loud as the last one. That seemed to come from the direction of the quarry, but this seemed to come from the city. The police got me out of bed ringing up last night to see if we had heard it. They told me that houses au the foot of St. David street had been shaken by the explosion.” “ I heard it all right,” said a housewife who lives near the foot of Hanover street. “I said to Alf: ‘Look out, it’s the Germans. Get under the table 1’ ” ■ . , . “ I told my husband : It s a motor car blown up,’ ” said her neighbour. Tho people seemed to think that the noise came from the general direction of the wharves. , “ Were they dreaming? asked a resident of Mason street, behind the railway station, when told that people had heard an explosion last night. But immediately after she recalled hearing the noise. She thought it had come from the I foundry across the road. “ There was a loud clap and the lights failed temporarily,” she remembered. But there were few people who did not hear it. POSSIBLE SOURCES ELIMINATED. New Zealand Highway Constructors Ltd. keep many bitumen drums on the premises, and it is not unknown for one of these to explode with plenty of noise. When the reporter called there this morning there was no sign of any such happening last night. The quarry at Logan Point also seems to be eliminated as a possible source of the disturbance. Nearly all reports, collected from all quarters of the north end, seem to point to the waste land behind the railway tracks as the venue. One rumour is that some inventor has developed a new bomb and is experimenting with it. For a lethal weapon, there is remarkably little evidence of serious damage. STUDENT ANGLE. “ With my long experience of students, I would say that it is possible that students were at the bottom of it,” smiled the secretary of the Otago University Students’ Association, “ particularly'as the ‘ end-of-the-year ’ feeling is here.” But the president had a different story. “ I would say definitely that no student had anything to do with it. Of course, I don’t get a report on the activities of 1,100 students. And one 1 of them might let off a basket bomb at times. But that would be a mighty big basket bomb. I heard it while 1 was studying last night. I took a careful npte of the time, too. It was a few minutes before 10.” Mr H. H. Francis, the official referred to, lives at St. George Courts, and this should give an idea of the magnitude of the explosion.