WHIRLWIND

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 9 January 1929, Page 4

WHIRLWIND

HOUSE LIFTED TWO FEET • OTHER DAMAGE DONE (By Telegraph—Press Association) WAIMATE, This Day. A whirlwind lasting for about a minute and a half was experienced at Waiho Forks on Monday afternoon at 3 o’clock. Extensive damage was donei .to the homestead and surroundings of Mr William C. Ashworth, who has a farm at Allanholme, and considerable damage done in the vicinity of the Allanholme coal mine. Mr Ashworth’s house was lifted two feet off its foundations and turned round slightly. The kitchen chimney and the wash-house chimney were levelled and the iron roof was torn off the washhouse. The roof of the house in other parts was rendered not watertight. Many pine trees in the vicinity of the house were uprooted and others bent. The orchard was completely ruined, several trees being rooted out. A whare was smashed to matchwood, a stable and adjoining shed completely wrecked, and a sheaf stack was also carried away. A dray against a fence among trees was lifted over the fence and a gig which was under the trees was carried for a chain and a half and smashed.

At the Allanholme coal mine a short distance from the homestead, a small house was lifted, half of it being carried two 'chains.

All the mine staging was torn down and several telegraph poles adjacent to the mine and homestead were snapped off four feet from the ground. The whirlwind, however, was confined to this small area