EXPLOSION IN HOTEL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18547, 6 November 1934, Page 7

EXPLOSION IN HOTEL

PECULIAR MISHAP 15 MEN IN DANGER Caused by a piece of iron spouting making contact with a high tension electric wire outside the building, a terrific explosion of two oxygen cylinders shook the North Richmond Hotel, in Melbourne, to its foundations recently. A remarkable feature (if a series of exciting incidents was that, although 13 men were in the danger zone, no one was injured. The sequence of events began when Mr. Alfred Brown, plumber, was holding the spouting on tne roof of a twostoreyed building next to the hotel. A gust of wind caught, the spouting and blew it on to one of eight high tension wires on top of a. post a few feet away. There was a blinding flash, the lights of the hotel and an adjacent shop went out, and a moment later the explosion occurred in the cellar of the hotel. Men standing in the bar and three people in the kitchen were knocked off their feet. Flames darted up from the ilar through cracks in the bar flooring.

Mr. 11. H. Jemmett, who was in the bar, said that spurts of flame 6ft. high came up from the cellar. His war experience made him realise the danger of gas, and when one of the barmen made an attempt to open the trapdobr to the cellar he tried to-dissuade him. The man, however, wrapped a wet. towel around his mouth and nose, dashed into the cellar and turned off the gas in the oxygen cylinders. Mr. Brown said that lie was lucky not to have been electrocuted when the spouting touched the electric wire. He must have released his - hold • only a second before the contact.