THUNDERSTORMS PLAY HAVOC IN QUEENSLAND

Chronicle (Levin), 8 February 1949, Page 5

THUNDERSTORMS PLAY HAVOC IN QUEENSLAND

BRISBANE, Feb. 7. Thunderstorms over Queensland produced freak results in several places Tate yesterday and early today. Many people were stunned and fragments of a brick chimney were thrown a hundred yards when a bolt of lightning struck a telephone - post . and a house in the Brisbane suburb of Wilson. The blast was so severe that dozens ot people in the neighbourhood were alfected by concussion for hours afterwards. Some had their eyesight blurred and others suffered temporary loss of hearing. The bolt hit a pole the?i flashed across the street to strike the chimney. A pall of thick white smoke rose above the house and a shower of brieks fell into the living-room. Residents of Cloncurry in north-west Queensland saw their streets littered with tiny fisli following a heavy storm. They were not surprised unduly, as the phenomenon has oeeurred four times previously. The fish were an inch to one and a half inches long. Some of them were still alive when picked up. The curator of the Queensland Museum, Mr. G. ilaek, said they were tiny native perches which survived in the ground in dry weather and bred during heavy rain. In some parts of Australia they could be found in countness numbers after tropical downpours.