COTTAGES WRECKED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23393, 7 January 1938, Page 3

COTTAGES WRECKED

HIT BY INTENSE WHIRLWIND TWO SAWMILLS UNROOFED (Per United Press Association) ROTORUA, Jan. 6. A local whirlwind of considerable intensity unroofed two sawmills and wrecked four workmen’s cottages belonging to the Taupo-To-tara Timber Company at Mokai, about 30 miles from Rotorua, on Wednesday afternoon. Fortunately the employees had not returned after the Christmas holidays and all the buildings were empty, with the exception of one mill where a small number of men was engaged carrying out repairs to machinery. The men had little warning of the visitation, which tore the corrugated iron from the roofs of two buildings and whirled it through the air for a distance of over 100 yards. Glass windows were also shattered and heavy beams in the roof displaced. Four workers’ cottages in the track of the whirlwind were levelled to the ground. The whirlwind passed as quickly as it had come, leaving behind it a trail of devastation within the area occupied by the mill buildings. So far as can be ascertained no damage was done in other parts of the district.