A VIOLENT WHIRLWIND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20611, 9 January 1929, Page 8

A VIOLENT WHIRLWIND.

-TREES UPROOTED AND SHEDS

WRECKED.

(Special to Daily Times.) CHRISTCHURCH, January 8. A devastating whirlwind was experienced at Waihao Forks, in the Waimate district. South Canterbury, yesterday afternoon. Though it lasted only about a minute, it wrought extensive damage to the homestead of Mr William‘Charles Ashworth, who has a farm at Allanholme, and considerable damage was also done in the vicinity of the Allanholme coal mine near by. Luckily there were no casualties. Most damage seems to have been done to and near Mr Ashworth’s house. The house itself was, according to the story of the six occupants at the time, lifted about two feet off its foundations and left out of plumb. Had the whirlwind continued longer it, is felt certain_ that the house would have capsized. As it was, the kitchen chimney and the washhouse chimney were levelled and the iron roof torn off the washhouse. Sheets of iron were torn off the roof of the house and all the rooms are now nonwatertight. _ Many of the pine trees in the plantation round the house were uprooted, and others were severely bent. The orchard was ruined, several trees being torn up. A whare was smashed to matchwood after being carried a few chains. An old stable was wrecked, and also a shed adjoining, while of 300 empty sacks stored on the farm only 12 are now to be found. Horse covers also disappeared. A stack was carried away, and a dray against a fence among the trees was lifted to the other side of the fence, while a gig under the trees was carried for a chain and a-half and smashed.

At the Allanholme coal mine, which is only eight chains from the homestead, a small house was lifted, half of it being carried more than two chains away, while the chimney was taken off another small abode. All the mine staging was blown down, and several telegraph pples adjacent to the mine and homestead. were snapped off four feet from the, ground. In Mr Ashworth’s house at the 'timo of the visitation were Mrs Ashworth and five children. They had a terrifying experience, especially when they thought the house was going to be turned over. Though the house was shifted, it was not shaken violently, so that nothing in it was disarranged. Mr Ashworth was working in the riverbed with a team when the whirlwind occurred, and the horses bolted. In the riverbed the full force of the gale was not encountered, which was perhaps lucky for Mr Ashworth. The whirlwind was confined to a small area. Mr Moyle’s place is about 30 chains from Mr Ashwo th’e, and only a corner of his plantation was touched, while no damage was done on the farm of Mr Major, 14 or 15 chains away. The scene of the visitation is now a strange sight. Debris is strewn everywhere, and trees are bent, some one way and some another. The house is not sitting properly On its foundations, and the whole frame is slewed round a little. It is amazing that a motor shed only'3o fee. away from the house was not touched by the wind.