QUEENSLAND TORNADO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21296, 24 September 1932, Page 11

QUEENSLAND TORNADO

TOWN GREATLY DAMAGED SEVERAL HOMES BLOWN DOWN BRISBANE, Sept; 25 A tornado tore across the outskirts of Gympie, a goldfields town 107 miles north of Brisbane, leaving a trail of chaotic ruin. The Roman Catholic Church was lifted 10 feet into the air and crashed in a mass of wreckage. Railway trucks, weighing about 20 tons, were swept off the rails, and petrol drums, containing 50 gallons of spirit, were carried 40 yards away by the wind. Several families managed to hurry from their homes as the latter were torn down like cardboard. The roads throughout the district are strewn with uprooted trees. Hundreds of sheets of galvanised iron were carried, miles away. The strange vagaries of the storm are demonstrated by tho fact that whereas houses on ono side of a street wero demolished those on the other side were left unscathed.

A heavy hailstorm followed the tornado and ruined crops. The damage to houses and shops, etc., is estimated at £IO,OOO. All telephone and electric light wires were broken or knotted. Two houses at Carlton Hill were lifted bodily and deposited two chains away. Tho occupants of ono of them suffered severely front shock and several people were treated for injuries inflicted by flying debris.