SHATTERING EXPLOSION

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 445, 29 August 1928, Page 1

SHATTERING EXPLOSION

Ponsonby Startled from Sleep by Blowing-Up of Shop Dwelling

MYSTERIOUS MOTORISTS DRIVE OFF

SHATTERING the early morning stillness, a shop dwelling at the corner of Napier and Sheridan Streets blew up to-day, and immediately hurst into a sheet of flame. Why a respectable grocer’s shop should have blown itself inside out, scattering its contents over the roadways and frightening all the residents from Cook Street to College Hill is a mystery, but there are statements that three men were seejn running to a motor-car, which drove furiously away.

An old wooden building, which has been a grocer’s shop for moro than 40 years, was a desolate sight this morning. One plate-glass window, with its contents of tins and boxes, was blown over Sheridan Street, and the other was strewn in a litter of glass over Napier Street. The place was gutted, and the standing walls were distorted and burnt. The verandah was hanging on its outside posts. The dwelling of five rooms was unoccupied, and practically unfurnished, the lessee of the shop, Mr. T. F. Carroll, having intended to shift 4n with his family to-morrow. The previous tenants of the house, which was let separately, shifted out on Saturday. The owner is Mr. J. Irwin, and the shop had been run by the Irwin family for about 45 years before Mr. Carroll took it over six months ago. MYSTERIOUS LIGHTS Lights were seen in the shop as late as 12.45 a.m. by Mrs. Mitchell, who lives opposite. She came home at about midnight, and noticed that the shop was lighted up. She commented to her husband that it seemed strange for “Tom Carroll to be working at this hour.” Before she went to sleep at 10 minutes to one the electric lights were still burning. Just after two o’clock the shattering detonation happened, shocking the people within a mile or two out of their sleep. A returned soldier said that it was like a mine bursting.

Within a few seconds the building was a mass of flames, which were seen as far away as Onehunga. And calls were sent to the City Fire Brigade. As soon as she was awake. Mrs. Mitchell says she heard a motor-car “tearing away,” and other neighbours declare th'at they saw three men running as though they were not a bit interested in fires. SAW THE MOTOR-CAR Stanley Wilmot, a fireman on the Maheno, who was returning from a

party at about two o’clock this morning, heard the explosion and called out the fire brigade. He was standing talking to some friends only a short distance from the house. Wilmot said that he saw three men run across the road near where the outbreak occurred, but he would not recognise them again, because of the dim light. The men got into a motorcar, which afterwards drove round past Wilmot. Someone in the car asked him if the alarm had been given. A small safe, which contained little of value, did not seem to have been touched. The nearest neighbour is Mrs. Mackay, and with her children she lost no time in getting out of her house, one of the infants being passed through the window. GROCER DID NOT KNOW Further down Napier Street, Mr. J. Littler said he was awakened by a sound of two motor-cars meeting in head-on collision, and then he noticed a reflection of the flames. At about three o’clock he went to the residence of Mr. Carroll in Anglesea Street and told him what had happened, the grocer having been completely in ignorance until then. The fire was short and spectacular. The brigade arrived at 2.15- and had it out within ten minutes with two leads of Hose'.

The contents, insured for £6OO with the British Traders, are a total loss. The building was also insured for £ 600 with the same firm.

Two or three hundred people had flocked to the scene in five minutes, the explosion having been a first-rate fire-alarm. Night clothes and hastily put on, shoes showed under overcoats, and even night-shirts, which most people think went out with Victoria, appeared in public. Poultry was disturbed on its perches in backyards for a great distance by the detonation* and clucking protestations could be heard for half an hour after the sightseers had gone back to bed.