EXPLOSION ON CAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 March 1926, Page 3

EXPLOSION ON CAR

DRIVER BLOWN TO BITS (Per Press Association.) PALMERSTON 14., March-4. A terrible fatality occurred near Shannon this morning when a fiveseater motor car and its sole occupant W. Campbell, of Tokomaru, were literally blown to pieces by an explosion. It is believed it was that of some explosives which were being carried in the vehicle. Campbell, who was a well-known and highly-respected resident of the district, was a bridge foreman for the Makerua Drainage Board, residing at Tokomaru. He is a widower, his wife having died twelve months ago. There is a family of ten, the eldest being a girl 17 years of age, who at the present time is a patient in the Palmerston North Hospital. Campbell apparently came down as usual this morning to the Makerua Drainage Board’s Works, about two miles from the town of Shannon, the point on which the workmen are at present operating being approximately a mile off the main road. The deceased went to a whare nearby in his motor car, apparently to secure supplies necessary to the scen'e of operations, when a terrific explosion was heard by those at the drainage works, and then in Shannon. Messrs Payne and Barrow, who were working on drains, made their way with all possible speed to the scene'of the explosion, which was about a quarter of a mile distant from the whare visited by the deceased. It was found that the explosion had originated from the motor car itself,. the vehicle being torn to pieces, and fragments hurled a great distance away. Of the body of the occupant, only small fragments could be found, he having been literally blown to pieces. Parts of his body were found one hundred yards away from the scene of the tragedy. It is surmised that the explosives were being carried on the motor car. and that they detonated in some fashion through the jolting of the vehicle. The scene of the fatality is a bye-road a little distance from the main Wellington-Palmerston North highway.