COAT OF DUST

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31005, 10 March 1966, Page 3

COAT OF DUST

(N.Z. Press Association! N. PLYMOUTH, March 9. Housewives and commercial people spent much of today cleaning a thick coat of dust from furniture and fittings after a dust storm in the Turangi-Tokaanu area on Tuesday night and early this morning. A stiff breeze whipped up dust from acres of bare ground at the Tongariro power scheme construction site.

On Tuesday night it appeared that a heavy fog which enshrouded the area was in fact dust. When kitchen staff at lodges, motels and hotels in the area began to prepare breakfast today they were faced with the mammoth task of cleaning. Every cup, saucer, and plate in one lodge had to be washed and the staff finished cleaning the 40 rooms late in the afternoon. A quarter-inch layer of dust had to be cleaned away in some places.

The movement of heavy machinery and light breezes combined today to keep an almost perpetual shroud of dust hovering above Turangi. Water trucks sprayed thousands of gallons of water on unsealed roads in an attempt to keep it down, but no sooner had water trucks passed along the road than the hot sun and heavy traffic sent clouds of dust rolling again.