ANOTHER GERMAN MINE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXVI, Issue 17544, 10 April 1919, Page 5

ANOTHER GERMAN MINE.

ON RANGITIKEI BEACH,

DESTROYED YESTERDAY

MORNING

That, mariners are not yet secure from the perils of floating _ enemy •mines was quite evident when a German mine of the usual large type was washed up on Rangitikei Beach on Monday morning. The military authorities were communicated with as soon as the mine was discovered, with the result that a party of four were sent to Bulls en route to the beach for the'purpcre cf f.czl.c;'.:.^ the dangerous weapon. The mine was found to he a "live" one,- but a plug of dynamite and a length of fuse soon reduced the element of Hun frightfulness to something more than a "dud." The explosion was heard for miles around.

Mr. H. A. Flower, of Wanganui, was an interested spectator of the "blowing up" of the mine. Major Anderson and party arrived from Wellington on Tuesday night, and yesterday morning proceeded, with a number of interested spectators, to the location of the mine, a spot ,on the beach about , twelve miles from Bulls. From a point of safety and vantage some 600 j-ards from the mine the onlookers watched the placing of the charge and the laying and firing of the fuse. Even at that distance, said Mr. Flower, the resultant concussion wa« almost enough to knock a man off his feet. He himself picked up a piece of the mine casing which was thrown fully five hundred yards from the point of explosion, and v/hica was still hot when he secured it. The cavity in the -sand caused by: the explosion measured 27ft. across and from 10 to 12ft. deep. A tremendous flash preceded the explosion, which took place just ten minutes after the fuse was lit. Mr. Flower commented on the care taken by Major Anderson and his supporters to prevent anything in the way of an accident either to the officers engaged in the work of destroying the mine or to the spectators. The mine, he says, was of pear-shaped construction about 4 to 4 % feet high and some 2y 2 feet through. Mr. Flower afterwards learned that the windows of all buildings in Bulls had been rattled by the explosion, and that the roar occasioned had been mistaken for a volcanic upheaval by a farmer who was at the time driving a mob of sheep in the vicinity of Turaklna.