"Tornado'1 In Wanganui Rocks Wellington City

Wanganui Chronicle, 31 October 1950, Page 4

"Tornado' 1 In Wanganui Rocks Wellington City

WELLINGTON, Last Night (Spec). —Wellington City was a little bit rocked this morning when ast ory appeared in a local newspaper that a tornado had struck Wanganui and killed 40 and injured 200 people. When the article was read more closely the city began rocking with laughter. A “model” newspaper had just appeared, being produced by a small group of eight and nine-year-olds at Kelburn Normal School under the guidance of a student teacher. It carries a series of articles and exclusive “true reports” of various imaginative events throughout New Zealand, the brightest of which follows the headlines “Tornado Kills Forty People.” The article states: “Today a tornado sprang up in Wanganui and tore trees up by their roots. It swiped roofs off houses and sent them sailing. Thousands were left homeless and 40 were killed and 200 injured and sent to the Wanganui Hospital by ambulance.” ROBBERS HENG. The school newspaper also carries a story under the byline, “Exclusive True Report” of a nurse being lost in the Waitomo Caves and another "sensation” involving two policemen tying up three robbers and taking them off to prison “where they were hung,” ap. parently out of hand. Among the advertisements in an ap* propriate section of the newspaper appear examples of the decidedly lost type such as: “Lost, two men . . .” and a man from the country.” Reactions to the tornado story were various, but inquiries were genuinely made this morning from the information section of the Department of Tourist and Publicity and of Meteorological Office as to the truth or otherwise of the “reports.”