Family Kitchen Becomes Blowhole

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7008, 18 November 1932, Page 8

Family Kitchen Becomes Blowhole

THIRTY-FOOT ERUPTION AT OHINEMUTU. HOUSEWIFE’S ESCAPE BY SECONDS Per Press Association. ROTORUA, Nov. 17. When Mrs Maro Hicks, of Ohinemutu, went to get her kettle from the family thermal cooking hole at 3 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon sho met with an unpleasant surprise. As she stooped for the kettle she heard an ominous rumble beneath her feet and fled just in time. A few seconds later the afternoon tea and evening dinner went up in an eruption thirty feet into tho air. The steam holes, two in number, were situated in a garden in the midst of a, group of cottages, and another was quite close to the same spot. They served not only for cooking purposes, but also supplied clear hot water for three baths. Now all connection with the baths is severed and the one on tho Hicks property is filled with liquid mud. Although water and steam rose fully 30 feet, practically no debris was ejected and no damage was done to the garden, cottage or baths, but where there was onco clear, hot pools, there are now two gaping holes in the rock a"bout two feet in diameter, with muddy boiling water at the bottom.