CAS EXPLODES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3817, 12 July 1928, Page 4

CAS EXPLODES.

BANANA STORE WRECKED. A TERRIFIC BLAST. SYDNEY, June 25. Coni gas escaping into a stoutlybuilt and almost air-tight room caused a terrific explosion at the Hay Street storeroom of Silk Bros., Ltd., banana importers, this morning. The room was wrecked, and a storeman was taken to hospital suffering (Tom severe shock. On the first floor of the store are three or four ripening chambers, wooden structures about 14ft. by 12ft., and standing about Oft, high. The process of artificial ripening is largely one of bent. In each chamber there are a gas jet and an electric fan. The flame from the jet warms the room for an hour or two, is turned off, and the fan turned on to drive the beat into the fruit in the stacked classes.

That was done this morning, but before long the l'ruit market neighbourhood was startled by a loud explosion and the crash of falling timber. The storeroom rocked, and a tornado-like blast of air swept down the narrow stairway, to blow open the iron shutters at the street level, but not a window was broken.

Stanley Wellington, aged 20, a storeman, of Smith Street, Marrickville was seated on a heap of hags immediately beside one of the walls of the chamber. He was thrown to the floor and suffered severely from shock, being unable to speak. He was hurried away by the Central Ambulance to the Sydney Hospital. ' One wall of the chamber was completely blown out, and landed bodily on an elevator six l'eet away. The only section of the structure that withstood the force of the explosion was that part of the wall where Wellington sat. Had it been otherwise he must have received dreadful injuries. The only explanation of the explosion is that the vibration set up by the electric fan caused the loose tap of the jet to open, allowing the gas to escape. There was no evidence of fire, so it is surmised that the explosion was entirely due to pressure. The fruit itself was scarcely affected, but the damage to the chamber is estimated at £2OO. The room in which the explosion occurred is about 201‘t long, 10ft high, and sft wide, and is used for storing bananas. The cause of the explosion is unknown, but it is believed by the police that, the generation of gas was the cause of it. The report of the explosion was heard some distance away.