£30,000 Blaze At Wellington

Northern Advocate, 15 January 1940, Page 6

£30,000 Blaze At Wellington

IPer Press Association. Copyrights l WELLINGTON, This Day. For the fourth time within 12 months damage running into thousands of pounds was caused in Wellington by fire on Saturday night. The back block of the Hope Gibbons building in Dixon Street was severely damaged. Intense heat caused by burning rubber packing and other material made the work of the fire brigade difficult, but »shortly after 9 p.m. a little more than an hour after the fire began, the flames were under control, Large Stock Destroyed. The stock of cycle equipment which Hope Gibbons, Ltd., had stored on the fifth floor, was probably the largest in New Zealand, and all was destroyed. As there has been a shortage of cycle equipment for some time this further depletion of stock is likely to be serious. The general manager of Hope Gibbons, Ltd., (Mr. A. R. Thomas) said the damage to stock on the fifth floor and to the building would amount to about £30,000 as near as he could estimate. Other Stock Damaged. The next heaviest sufferer was the Welsbach Light Company, on the fourth floor which had all its stock of electrical and other equipment destroyed. Stock owned by tailoring firms on the second and third floors was damaged by water. Water also soaked through records which the Labour Department had on the second floor.

Hunger-strikers.— A Johannesburg cable states that the inmates of Keeuwkup internment camp are hunger-striking except for bread and coffee. Those interned exceed 1000, and are mostly Germans, though there are some South Africans.