Cyclone at Christchurch

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3613, 25 January 1906, Page 2

Cyclone at Christchurch

PART OF THE EXHIBITION BLOWN DOWN. HEAVY TOSS ON THE CONTRACTORS. A heavy thunderstorm broke over Christchurch on Sunday, preceeded by a violent squall of wind. Although this only lasted a few minutes, it did much damage in the town. Windows were blown in in many houses, and gardens wrecked. The chief mishap, however, was the collapse of a large portion of the Exhibition building, about two hundred feet of which was blown down, much of the heavy timber being smashed. The disaster is not likely to delay the opening of the Exhibition, but from the point of view of the contractors the occurrence is serious. They have been at work Since November, and the damage, represents the loss of a considerable portion of the work done. The cost of restoring the framework to the condition in which it stood will probably be about The gale appears to have been something in the nature of a cyclone. It came up suddenly, presaged only by a mass of dark clouds and a few peals of thunder, and lasted in full force three or four minutes at the most.

The Exhibition building, which is situated on a slight eminence and is entirely unprotected, received the full force of the wind, which came from the south-west. The framework was about four hundred feet along, and two hundred feet at the north end was wrecked. Heavy beams in the roof were smashed and fell, carrying with them much of the walls and the timbers of the floor below. Within a couple of minutes the framework that had outlined the graceful form of the building had become a mass of broken timber.

Happily no one was on the spot at the time, else loss of life would have been almost certain. Had the gale struck the building on a working day, when thirty or forty men would have been engaged on its construction the accident could hardly have failed to have been the most serious in the history of Canterbury.