QUEENSLAND STORMS

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 December 1934, Page 7

QUEENSLAND STORMS

FIREBALL, RAIN AND GALE GREAT DAMAGE REPORTED [BY CABLE—PRESS ASSN. —COPYBIGHT.] (Recd. December 28, 1 p.m.) BRISBANE, December 28. Terrific storms yesterday caused extensive damage to property in scattered parts of Queensland. During a. torrential downpour at Yandina, on the North Coast, a fireball fell in a sugar-cane plantation. The explosion shook, the buildings in the township, and the occupants of the plantation were affected by concussion and dazzling white light. At Rowa, the roof of the powerhouse collapsed, plunging the whole town in darkness. Pieces of ice fell during a hail and wind storm at St. George, in the Maranoa district, where a section of the State School buildings was wrecked. Other buildings were unroofed. Water overflowed the street channels, flooding business premises. All streams in the Maranoa district are, in flood. ‘ ‘ ' Thousands of td*ees .in -the Goondiwindi area were torn up by the roots, or snapped off, graziers’ homes ;and shearing sheds were unroofed, and outbuildings razed by a hurricane.

Seven inches of rain fell in a few hours, and the township of Yelarbon is isolated in sea water.

Telegraph lines are down everywhere, and the mail train from Goondiwindi to Brisbane was delayed by trees which had crashed across the line.

Joseph Burke, a well-known pastoralist of the Warwick district, was drowned when attempting to cross a flooded stream, on horseback.

THIRST DRAMA. PERTH, December 28. A Postal Department mechanic, who went out to repair a telephone line between Broome and Derby, on Christmas Eve, not only found the break, but also two men, on the point of death from thirst. One ipan named Cameron, who was walking from Broome to Darwin, had cut the wire, in the hope that he would be rescued by a repair party. When Cameron revived he revealed that another nian further along the line was in a desperate plight. The mechanic discovered the second man scraping in the sand fop water. Both men have now recovered.