PETROL STORAGE HAZARDS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19777, 3 November 1938, Page 20

PETROL STORAGE HAZARDS

DOMINION REGULATIONS INQUIRIES MADE ABROAD (Per Press Association.) NEW PLYMOUTH, this day. Government investigations into the hazards of petrol storage tanks were outlined 'by the chief inspector of explosives, Mr. Girling Butcher, when, with other Government officials, he inspected the proposed site of storage tanks at Moturoa yesterday. The feelings of 'the 'people who urged that the tanks should be underground and who feared for the safety of life and property in the vicinity to the tanks were, he said, due to a misunderstanding. Before any regulations governing petrol tanks had been made in New Zealand, the Government had made exhaustive world-wide inquiries as to what hazards were involved and what were reasonable precautions, said Me. Butch Cr. As a result of those inquiries the dangerous goods regulaMons were framed. They were in -ccord with the experience of other -'ouivtries, which had far greater quantities of petrol in. store. The risk which had to be guarded against was the fire risk and not an explosion risk. There was no case on record of an explosion having thrown any Dart of a tank against any adjacent building. If the tanks should be hit by a bomb or a shell, a nearby school would still be safe.

It would not matter a great deil from the defence standpoint if one or two tanks were put out of commission by a raid, because, for its population, New Zealand had more bulk installations than any other country.