The Centre for Fortean Zoology was founded in the UK in 1992 - nearly 20 years ago. Over the past two decades it has expanded to become a truly global organisation. We opened our American office in 2001, or Australian office in 2009, and now - in our 19th year - we are proud to welcome CFZ New Zealand to the CFZ global family.

Sunday 18 September 2011

Turtle survives aquarium inferno

By Matthew Theunissen on Fri, 16 Sep 2011
News: National


A turtle miraculously survived an inferno in an aquarium which was so hot it boiled water in some tanks and killed hundreds of fish.

The blaze at the Mapua Aquarium near Nelson was one of three fires in the area early yesterday morning believed to have been the work of arsonists.

Fire investigator Lewis Jones said the fire caused "total destruction'' in the building and was so intense it boiled water in some of the tanks and caused their glass to burst.

"Miraculously'', a turtle somehow survived the fire, which killed everything else in the building.

"Fortunately for the turtle he must have been underwater in an area that didn't get so hot or he was in an area where there was a fair quantity of cold water running in from fire hoses,'' Mr Jones said.

"It was the one lovely thing about the whole job. Everything else is a gut-wrenching thing for the community.''

The turtle seemed unscathed after its ordeal and was being looked after by aquarium staff.

While firefighters were battling the blaze at about 3am, they received calls about two other fires in the area, one in a wheelie bin on Iwa Street and another at the local tennis court pavilion.

These were quickly extinguished but the aquarium blaze took hours to control.

Police are treating all the fires as suspicious.

They asked anyone who took photos of any of the fires to contact Motueka police.

1 comment:

  1. When one conceives the problem currently happening, i have to believe in your endings. You intelligibly show cognition about this subject and i have much to discover seeing your publish.Lot’s of greetings and that i is for any further revisions.wedding

    ReplyDelete