TWO TRAGEDIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 March 1943, Page 4

TWO TRAGEDIES

5 SIX CHILDREN DEAD THE RESULT OF EXPLOSIONS. TAMPERING WITH MILITARY MATERIAL. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day. 12.15 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. Five children died in the Newcastle ■ Hospital from burns received when explosive powder which they had extracted from a flare bomb was ignoted. The children, aged from seven to fifteen years, had found a bomb in shallow Water at the edge of a lake. They Were standing in a group examining the contents when it is believed one of them struck a match and threw it on a heap of powder. The father of one of the children said that he heard a dull roar and saw the children, who were all wearing bathing trunks, enveloped in flame. The grass around them was alight. The bare bodies of the children had received the full force of the blast and were extensively burned from the waist up. Three families, who had been frfends for many years, have been bereavOd, each family being left with only one ' child. The families were spending the ... weekend together at a holiday resort. This was Australia’s Second trdgedy during the week caused through children tampering with military material which they had found. At Brisbane a schoolboy, aged twelve, was killed and seven other children injured, three critically, when a shell exploded. A boy had discovered the shell and is believed to have dropped it while showing it to other children. A warning has been given by the military authorities that people must not take as souvenirs or tamper with any military apparatus they may discover.