Freak Storms Cause Loss Of Life In New South Wales

Wanganui Chronicle, 17 January 1949, Page 5

Freak Storms Cause Loss Of Life In New South Wales

Theatre Wall Falls In On Children At Matinee Performance

SYDNEY, Jan. 16 (Bee. 6.50 pm).—Freak electrical storms which swept New South Wales yesterday afternoon and evening caused two deaths, many injuries and a great deal of damage to property. When a violent gale blew in the back wall of a theatre at Parkes, 276 miles west of Sydney, during a matinee performance, one child was crushed to death and 30 injured. Rescuers had to dig children from ten tons of rubble while parents waited to identify the victims. The show had .just begun with the biggest matinee attendance in months when a squall hit the building. Simultaneously, the town power supply failed. About 15 children, including the dead child, eight-year-old Wesley Ronald Noakes, were buried under the debris and others were hit with Hying bricks, galvanised iron, and timber. A large crowd was brought to the cene by the cries of the children, which were clearly audible above the howling storm. Momentary panic ensued when the wall fell, but the exit was most orderly and the theatre was cleared within a few minutes. Many children suffered minor injuries in the scramble for the doors. Rescuers rushed in at once and the first child was freed from Ihe wreckage within 10 minutes, 01 the nine children remaining in hospital, two are in a serious condition

A foreman telephone linesman, Mr. Harold Bassett, aged 26, was electrocuted at Parkes when engaged in repairing lines after the storm. The gale brought the mast of the radio station 2PK crashing down across high tension wires and telephone lines. Mr. Bassett was warned that the teleii'.one line was “live," but he touched it nevertheless. Death was instantaneous.

In Sydney damage amounting to 170,000 has already been reported lolling a thunderstorm with winds exceeding 70 miles an hour which hit the city yesterday afternoon. Dozens o£ roofs were blown off, windows were smashed, and power cables brought down. Twenty families were driven from their homes in the suburb of Botany, and one house was practically demolished. Lightning wrecked another home at Bankstown and felled a 50-foot tree in the yard. The maximum gust recorded at the Weather Bureau was 74 miles an hour, but much higher velocities were experienced in some suburbs Sixty points of rain fell in under an hour. Large sections of Sydney and suburbs were blacked out for hours last night and in some cases services were not restored until early today. In most cases the damage was caused through lightning striking transformers.