BLASTING ROCK WITHOUT WARNING

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 161, 28 September 1927, Page 1

BLASTING ROCK WITHOUT WARNING

j>T. RESOLUTION WORK DANGER TO PUBLIC Usually* when blasting operatons i.ra being carried out, workmen warn passers-by of their danger* but this is not the case at Feint Resolution, where a channel is being blasted in the papa rock inside the new railway embankment. Slhots fired with the same freedom as they migrht be if there were no one within miles. Pieces of rooks fly 150 yards away, an<l several people have narrowly escaped injury. The charges are fired very near the surface and are therefore of the most dangerous variety. Pieces of papa not only fly up into thi small grass square at the extreme end of the point, but also in the reserve immediately at the end of St. Stephen’s Avenue. A SUN reporter yesterday afternoon arrived just at the moment when a cturge went up. Together with others, he made a hurried scurry. No warning of any kind was given, nor vras there so much as a red flag in tha reserve. Large pieces of rock have been blown into the baths, where tha men engaged in cleaning out have several times suffered a shower of rock, fortunately without injury. The men's dressing shed is a picture of ruin. Practically the whole of the roof requires renewing, and the gliw is broken in several skylights.