EXPLOSION AT QUEENSTOWN.

Otago Witness, Issue 3615, 26 June 1923, Page 45

EXPLOSION AT QUEENSTOWN.

ACETYLENE GAS PLANT WRECKED. CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE DONE. (Fbgu Ode Own Correspondent.' QUEENSTOWN June 22. A® terrific explosion took place here at 3.45 this afternoon, the municipal acetylene gas plant blowing up and causing great damage in the town. The plant was housed in a corrugated iron building about 25ft by 16ft, not a vestige of which was left standing. Every sheet of iron was twisted and hurled in all directions chains distant, some lodging on the tops of houses and on the branches of trees. Some wooden houses in the vicinity were wrecked, including Mr J. Edgar’s motor garage, and nearly eve»y window within a radius of a-quarter of a mile -was broken by the concussion. Fortunately no person suffered very severe injury, though several people were cut by falling glass and are suffering from shock. One or two miraculous escapes are recorded. The explosion is involved in mystery, and no definite cause can yet be assigned for the oocurrence. In February last a referendum was taken, and the people declared almost unanimously for hydro-electricity. The Mayor (Mr A. Simson) is at present on his return from Wellington, where he interviewed the Government regarding a loan of £7OOO for its establishment. The damage to property must run into some hundreds of pounds. June 23. All inquiries and investigations still fail to throw any light on the cause of the explosion of the municipal acetylene gas plant yesterday afternoon. An inquiry must necessarily be held, when possibly experts may be able to assign a cause for the disaster. Residents of the terraces who witnessed the occurrence state that flames seemed to leap 150 to 200 feet simultaneously with the explosion then die down to a few feet from the gasometer, the top of which was blown off, while its circular side formation still remained. Numerous pieces of torn and twisted iron hurled into mid-air

found a resting place on the bottom of the lake. Some landed on the steamer Mountaineer, which was lying at Rotten Row. Mr Elgar was working in his garage near by when the place came crashing ciown. He suffered some nasty cuts from broken glass. Ilis car in the garage was covered with splinters, but just had the windshield broken. Mrs W. Stroud and children living in a cottage on the other side had a narrow escape, the house being pretty well wrecked. Mrs Oliphant’s house across the street suffered a similar fate, She was with a married daughter in another part of the town at the time. Other houses in the vicinity had ceilings cave in, doors and window frames cracked or splintered, besides broken windows and crockery. Nearly every window in the front of the Bank of New Zealand and the front and sides of Eichardt’s Hotel and tho Mountaineer Hotel were bro! ten, and almost every business place in the immediate town area suffered loss of this kind. Those on the north side of Ballarat street seemed to escape pretty well. The concussion broke some windows on tho Eastern terrace. Stone and brick buildings fared much worse than wooden ones. ■Some miraculous escapes in the near danger zone from flying iron and wood as well as from falling glass are recorded. Great thankfulness is felt that no loss of life occurred. The acetylene gas plant was installed in 1910. and for some years past it has been in charge of the borough dayman, Mr J. B. M’Leely, who is utterly at a loss to account, for. the explosion. Until shipments of glass arrive windows are being covered in with boards, sacks, hessian, or cardboard. Kerosene lamps and candles have had to be resorled to for town and household illumination. The damage is fully joOO apart from the wrecked gas plant.