SHOP WRECKED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20931, 10 January 1938, Page 6

SHOP WRECKED

HEAVY EXPLOSION

FIVE MEN SUFFER INJURY FIREMEN BLOWN OFF THEIR FEET By Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND. January 9 Five persons were injured and damage estimated to exceed £2OOO was caused by a violent explosion following an alarm of fire which demolished one shop and partly wrecked several others in a block at the corner of Remuera Road and Victoria Avenue, Remuera, about 7.30 o’clock this morning. A number of other persons, including firemen, were blown off their feet by the explosion and narrowly escaped serious injury. The injured people are: Alfred Patrick Lynch, aged 46. married, garage proprietor, cf Remuera Road, compound fracture of the right arm and severe cuts and abrasions. His condition later was satisfactory. F. T. Barber, of Remuera, cuts on the face, leg and arm. Daniel Glennon, of the Remuera Fire Brigade, cuts and abrasions. Albert Clarke, of the Remuera Fire Brigade, cuts and abrasions. D. P. Randall, of the Parnell Fire Brigade, injury to the right eye. The five victims of the explosion were taken to the Auckland hospital. Lynch was admitted and the others were discharged after receiving treatment. Several other brigadesmen suffered slight cuts and scratches through being struck by flying fragments of glass. Gases from a source at present unknown are believed to have filled the shop of R. D.. Wylie, chemist, and then exploded. A passenger in a passing motor-car saw’ thick smoke near the front of the shop and used the street alarm to summon the fire brigade. Engines from the Remuera and Parnell Brigades answered the call. The second engine had only just stopped near the Victoria Avenue intersection and the firemen had not had time to alight when the explosion occurred. The front and side of Wylies shop were blown out. Shattered glass was hurled across both Remuera Road and Victoria Avenue to break windows in the premises opposite. | Firemen and onlookers standing near were knocked down. Lynch, who had walked from his premises a few doors further along Remuera road and was standing near the intersection was thrown bodily to about the middle of the road. He managed to crawl a few yards, rose to his feet, and then collapsed, as occupants of shops on the southern side of the Remuera road rushed to his assistance. Dr. A. McGregor Grant and two St. John Ambulances were summoned and the injured were taken to the Auckland Hospital. Lucky Escapes One of the luckiest escapes was that of John Macdonald, officer in charge of the Remuera Fire Station. Making a preliminary inspection to see if there was any flame inside the chemist’s I shop, he had just turned his back and was commencing to walk toward the fire engine when the window was blown ' out. Caught by the fierce rush of air i he was sent staggering across the road, | but although glass flew all around him. ; and others standing even further away were injured, he was unhurt. Still aboard the fire engine. Randall had no chance of escaping. A small piece of glass struck his right eye, but he manI aged to throw himself down and dodge | a heavy section of leadlight which flew I through the air, missing his head by ! inches and finishing 50ft. or more away. Havoc* In Shop Havoc was complete inside Wylie's shop. With the whole of the front and side windows facing Remuera road and Victoria Avenue blown away, the stock was reduced to a heap of useless litter piled high on the footpath. Heavy cupboards and shelves partly tom from the walls leaned tat drunken angles, and the floor was knee deep in wreckage. Photographs and wrappings floated in pools of mixed drugs and medicines, and the smell of chemicals was overpowering. Though Wylie’s shop was the most extensively damaged, other premises in the same block, which belongs to Mr Wylie, also suffered severely. The rooms of Miss L. Burke, chiropodist, were completely disordered, and a window was broken and a door blown out in the adjoining premises of H. V. Banks, nurseryman. Upstairs the dentitst’s rooms of Dr. Max Wagner escaped more lightly, though some of I the instruments were scattered. A large window in M. Alexander’s fruit shop | was broken and the stock of fruit was smothered with fragments of glass and rendered useless. The windows of two shops on the southern side of Remuera road were broken by flying fragments. Small holes were pierced in the display window of B. Halligan’s stationer’s shop, and also in the window of an empty shop next door. Window’s above the shops were also shattered, as were two panes of glass in the upper storey of the Remuera Post Office. Wylie’s premises were covered by insurance.