STORMS IN NSW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26981, 17 January 1949, Page 5

STORMS IN NSW

GALE STRIKES THEATRE

CHILD KILLED IN RUSH FOR EXITS

MANY OTHERS INJURED NZPA—Copyright Rec. 11 p.m. SYDNEY. Jan. 18. Freak electrical storms which swept New South Wales yesterday afternoon and evening caused two deaths, many injuries, and a great deal of damage to property. When a violent gale blew in the back wall of a theatre at Farkes, 276 miles west of Sydney, during a matinee performance, one child was crushed to death and 30 were injured. Rescuers had to dig children from 10 tons of rubble while parents waited to identify the victims. The performance had just begun with the biggest matinee attendance in months when a squall hit the building. Simultaneously, the town power supply failed. About 15 children, including the dead child, eight-year-old Wesley Ronald Noakes, were buried under the debris, and many others were hit with flying bricks, galvanised iron, and timber. A large crowd was brought to the scene by the cries of the children, which were clearly audible above the howling of the storm. Momentary panic ensued when the wall fell, but the exit was most orderly, and the theatre was cleared within a few minutes. Many children suffered minor injuries in the scramble for the doors. The rescuers rushed in at once, and the first child was freed from the wreckage within 10 minutes. Of nine children remaining in hospital, two are in a serious condition. A foreman telephone linesman, Harold Bassett, aged 26, was electrocuted at Parkes when engaged in repairing lines after the storm. The gale brought the mast of a radio station crashing down across high tension wires and telephone lines. Bassett was warned that the telephone line was “ live.” Death was instantaneous. In Sydney, damage amounting to £70,000 has already been reported following a thunderstorm with winds exceeding 70 miles an hour which hit the city yesterday afternoon. Dozens of roofs were blown off, windows were smashed, and power cables brought down. , Twenty families were driven from their homes in the suburb of Botany, and one house was practically demolished. Lighting wrecked another home at Bankstown and felled a 50ft tree in a yard. The maximum gust recorded at the Weather Bureau was 74 miles an hour, but much higher velocities were experienced in some suburbs. Sixty points of rain fell in under an hour. Large sections of Sydney and the suburbs, were blacked out for hours last night, and in some cases services were not restored until early to-day. In most cases damage was caused through lightning striking transformers.