THUNDERSTORM ON THE PENINSULA.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1200, 8 January 1878, Page 3

THUNDERSTORM ON THE PENINSULA.

A HOUSE STRUCK HY UOHTNIHO. During Friday afternoon Akaroa Harbour and the bays on the south-east side of the Peninsula were visited by a severe thunderstorm, accompanied by an extraordinary fall of hail, doing considerable damage to the gardens in Akaroa. Some of the hailstones were nearly an inch long. The lightning was extremely vivid. During the storm one incident occurred which might have had a serious if not a fatal result. The chimney of the house in the occupation of Mrs M. Blythen, Duvauchelle’s Bay, was struck by lightning; the electric iluid passed down the chimney and exploded on the colonial oven with a report louder than that of a fowling-piece, accompanied by an excessively bright blue flame and dense sulphurous smoke ; in fact the latter was so thick that Mrs J. Blythen and Miss Blythen, who were sitting on the side remote from the fireplace, were unable to sec through it. The chimney, which is an outside one, was cracked from the top to the fireplace; one brick of the sailing-course was broken in half, and several others displaced. The debris from the chimney was scattered all over the room, even upon the table, one piece of mortar striking Mrs M. Blythen on the head, causing her no little fright. The chimney was moved about an inch from the perpendicular, and the paint on the weatherboards was taken off in several places. Three telegraph-posts on the Christchurch and Akaroa road were split into pieces, and a large ball of fire was seen to fall at the back of the range in French Farm, but no further damage has as yet been heard of in the neighbourhood.