“A BALL OF FIRE.”
(From Our Own Correspondent.) AUCKLAND, May 3. During the height of the recent storm at Mercury Bay a terrifying experience occurred on a telegraph wire about a mile from the Colville Post Office. A “great bail of fire” was seen to strike the wire and explode. A spectator, who was more than half a mile away, said the noise was equal to the explosion of a case of dynamite, and for quite 10 minutes his ears were full of reverberations. The explosion took place on the top of an iron telegraph pole, splintering the insulators arid the crossarm into hundreds of pieces, and scattering them chains away. An insulator bolt was burnt down to the size of a two-inch nail. A hole nearly sft across was torn in tho ground at the foot of the pole, and to its full depth. A witness of the spectacle says: “The fire ball” continued its course through a ploughed field, and was last seen travelling towards the hills at an immense speed. The full severity of the storm was felt on the gulf side of Coromandel Peninsula. and it greatly damaged tire Thames road.
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Bibliographic details
Otago Witness, Issue 3609, 15 May 1923, Page 26
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195“A BALL OF FIRE.” Otago Witness, Issue 3609, 15 May 1923, Page 26
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