GROCER'S SHOP BLOWN UP.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17493, 29 August 1928, Page 7

GROCER'S SHOP BLOWN UP.

AW EARLY MORNING SENSATION.

TERRIFIC EXPLOSION IN AUCKLAND CITY. FIRE BRIGADE SUPPRESSES THE FLAMES. MOTOR CAR’S MYSTERIOUS MOVEMENTS. (Special to Times.) AUCKLAND, Wednesday. A terrific explosion at 2.30 a.m. wrecked Mr T. Carroll s grocery store at the corner of Napier and Sheridan Streets. Residents in the immediate vicinity rushed into the streets. Debris caught fire and blazed fiercely until the flames were quelled by the City Fire Brigade. One side of the shop was pushed bodily into the street. A shutter on a window was hurled across the road, and the roadway was littered with broken glass, while cabbages, tins of jam, etc., were hurled on to roofs of surrounding houses. The explosion rudely awakened the neighbours, and they immediately saw that the building was a mass of flames. “I thought that it was a gasometer that had gone up,” said one of the nearby residents, who told a press representative that it was followed by heavy thuds on the roof of his house. “On rushing outside I saw Mr Carroll’s shop blazing like a bonfire.” Inquiries were being made this morning in regard to a mysterious motor car, containing a number of men, which dashed away from the locality just after the explosion occurred. One man on his way home actually saw the car head inio Hepburn Street, but at that moment, he was racing io find an electric fire alarm. Several people heard the rapid movements of a car. A lady who lives immediately opposite the wrecked shop told of a mysterious light in the shop soon after midnight. A surprise party had arrived unexpectedly, but owing to the illness of the children in ihe house it did not, eventuate. Having occasion to get up at midnight, she saw that Carroll’s shop was well lit up and a light was there for some time. She felt curious about it but did not make any further inquiries. The living portion of the shop had been tenanted by a widow and children. They shifted out on Sunday last, and it was Mr Carroll’s intention to have shifted in to-day. He had been living in a house ’close by. The insurances on Carroll’s shop which was destroyed by fire after the explosion are £6OO on the buildings and the same amount on the contents. The superintendent of the Fire Brigade is of opinion that the building was blown up by a gas explosion.