STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9564, 10 August 1909, Page 5

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.

By Telegraph—Press Association. AUCKLAND, August 9. About 8.30 p.m. on Thursday, the residenec of Mr N. T. Larsen, farmer, of Te Kuiti, received a very severe shock of lightning, much, damage being done to the building., It appears that Mr and Mrs Larsen and some friends were in the kitchen at the time ofthe shock, and their little girl was in bed in one of the front bedrooms. The occupants of the kitchen heard a loud report outside the window. This was followed by a flash of light and a slight shaking of the building, with a crash of crockery falling from a dresser. The startled occupants proceeded to the front of the building, and on finding the child unhurt went to the bedroom, only a minute previously vacated by Mrs Larsen (she having up till that time been seated before the grate fire), to find it full of smoke and the lamp extinguished. On further it Was; found that the chimney had been struck, the grate having been blown out into the room and the hearth torn up. Burning coals from the fire had caught the bedclothes. The next room visited was the dining room. It was found that the lightning had entered at the side of one of the windows, smashing through the facing boards, and striking the sewing machine, damaging it. Next they visited the sitting room, to find that it had a yard square of the wall smashed in completely. On visiting the bathroom they fousd further evidences of the lightning there in the breaking of the woodwork of the bath. Next, the party visited the washhouse, to find that the window wall, and tubs had been wrecked. The lightning struck tha ground in two places outside tlio kitchen window, and one in front of the house. The chimney struck was broken to pieces to a level with the roof, which was also damaged. The occupants escaped without injury, but are all 'suffering from shock. . - «