MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSION

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1934, Page 9

MYSTERIOUS EXPLOSION

TWO CHARGES OF GELIGNITE BRIDGE WRECKING ATTEMPTED. INCIDENT AT NORFOLK ROAD. The discovery that two large charges of gelignite had been used in an unsuccessful attempt to wreck a bridge on his farm at Norfolk Road recalled to Mr. F. R. Voitrekovsky and his family on Tuesday morning that they had been awakened the previous night by a loud thud. The reason for the attempted outrage is stated to be as mysterious as the identity of the perpetrator. The bridge is about 12 chains from the house and a little farther from the main road, from which it is hidden from view. It is a type of structure common on farms for the purpose of driving cattle across a stream in times of flood. It is founded on strongly reinforced concrete walls 12 feet long (the width of the bridge), 10ft high and a foot thick, one being on each side of the stream. Iron rails support a wooden decking about 30 feet long, approached at both ends' by- a metalled roadway. The family went to bed early on Monday night only to be aroused by a thud. No investigations were made then, but next morning Mr. Voitrekovsky found gaping holes, five and three feet wide respectively, at each end of the bridge. The concrete was bodly cracked and stones and earth blown from the banks were strewn about.

It appeared that large charges of gelignite had been placed in deep holes against the walls with the object of shattering the concrete walls so that the bridge would collapse. There were lengths of burnt-out fuse among the debris.