GAS EXPLOSION

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 118, 13 May 1932, Page 5

GAS EXPLOSION

BUILDING WRECKED FIVE PEOPLE INJURED / (Per Press Association) • AUCKLAND, Last Night* With a noise like the bursting of a high explosive shell and with almost as much subsequent damage a gas explosion occurred in a living room behind a shop in Court’s buildings, Queen Street, Onehunga, at about 2 o’clock this afternoon. The building, a two-storeyed structure of brick and concrete, was almost completely wrecked and five people were injured, fortunately none of them seriously. The list of injured is as follows: — Claude Harrison, aged 57, proprietor’ of the confectionery shop where the explosion occurred, fractured arm and cuts on the face.

John Sibbin, aged 32, Gas Com pany employee, burns to right hand and face.

Doreen Catchpole, aged 12, a fractured femur.

Mrs. Harrison, -wife of the shopkeeper, injuries to right arm and legs.

Mrs. Mary Catchpole, mother of Doreen Catchpole, badly sprained ankle.

The wreckage caused by the explosion made it seem almost miraculous that no one was gravely injured. Nearby shopkeepers stated that the roar of the explosion was indescribable. The. entire front of Harrison’s shop was blown out and the living room where the explosion actually occurred was just a mass of jagged timbers. The gas stove was thrown across the kitchenette behind the living room. There were ominous bulges in the brick walls at the sides of the building and cracks in the concrete wall at the rear.

The other shop in Court’s buildings occupied by Mr. E. Hardgrave, hairdresser and tobacconist, had its plate-glass window blown out and in the adjoining building, a tailor’s shop, occupied by I. Lomas, two plateglass windows were wrecked. So great was the force of the explosion that on the other side of the street the plateglass windows of three shop were smashed by the concussion. A large open touring car was parked on the roadside outside the shop and it, too, was badly damaged by the force of the explosion and by flying glass. A shopkeeper' on the other side of the street said that when he heard the roar of the explosion he dashed out on to the footpath and all he could see was a dense cloud of smoke and dust. When it cleared there was a gaping shop front wrecked almost beyond recognition.

Luckily the explosion was followed by only a minor outbreak of fire which was quickly subdued.