SENSATION AT WAIHI.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 May 1921, Page 3

SENSATION AT WAIHI.

EXPLOSION OF GELIGNITE. BOARDING HOUSE DAMAGED. WOMEN’S NARROW ESCAPE. A distardly attempt was made at Waihi at 1.30 o'clock on Monday morning to wreck the Commercial Hotel, a large boarding house in Seddon Street. A charge of gelignite was exploded in the kitchen range, with the result that considerable damage was caused. Fortunately, the occupants of the house escaped injury. The explosion practically demolished the range, and the chimney was rent from bottom to top. Pieces of iron were hurled through the partition into the dining room, and damaged the funiture and crockery. Portion of the door of the range was found in this room. The force, of the explosion acted principally in a straight line from the range, smashing everything in its path. Two young women employed in the hotel had remarkable escapes. They were sleeping in a room adjoining the kitchen, but were untouch.il by the flying missiles. Apparently the side of the stove against the wall of the bedroom showed greater resistance to the shock of the explosion than did the front portion, with the result that the explesicffi took

an utward and upward direction. Although people living some distance from the boarding house were awakened by the explosion, many of the borders slept right through it. A boarder who was one of the first to reach the kitchen states that he noticed gelignite fumes. The police discovered a portion of a burnt fuse in the debris of the kitchen, so that there can be little room for doubt as to the cause of the explosion. The building inspector has ordered the chimney to be taken down. Had the explosion''caused it to fall the young women sleeping in the room adjoining the kitchen would probably have been killed. Boarders at the hotel recently had a dispute with the proprietress, Mrs. Young, owing tn the tariff being-in-creased from 32«» Gd to 35s a weak.